Volume 1 Episode 8 - Iron Sharpeth Iron
by Aintzane
Summary: The Iron Warriors have got their hands on the powerful daemon engine. Volentia is desperately ready to finish the unsolved case with everything at her disposal and stop them but soon realises that her slide towards Radicalism is going too far.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Sealed vials of spectral fire glowed blue and red on the working stall among neat boxes of cogitator spare parts. Warsmith Aspersum took one with suspicion. Madness and malice bound within stung his mind, and he suppressed the desire to crush it with his gauntlet. Company serfs had chosen a suitable chassis from the large stocks of his fortress and installed all minor parts but Aspersum didn't trust mortals to let them build the processing units. When he prepared to fix the bound daemon in the socket, heavy steps thudded on the metal floor.

'I've arrived, m'lord.' Limax, his newly appointed subordinate Warsmith, walked around the stall panting and clearing his throat. When Limax stopped before Aspersum, he looked down at his boots, his gauntlets clasped on his belly.

'Let's see what you can do here.' Aspersum frowned at the gawky man in corroded dirty armour. He had seen Limax only once or twice until Limax's predecessor, Warsmith Helix, got killed at the failed siege of Forge World Hemicycla along with his trusted lieutenants. Limax, an unremarkable sergeant, had managed to reach the veteran age only because no one cared about him. For most of his service, he had been carrying cargoes and ammo between Medrengard and pirate worlds in and outside of the Eye. But for the attrition, he'd never become a company captain. His own legionnaires mocked Limax behind his back, openly laughing at another of his fails or paranoid antics.

'The navigator server?' Limax tapped on the dataslate fixed on his vambrace to avoid Aspersum's mocking stare. 'I've got manuals here, m'lord.'

'Don't you dare to break the glasses. We've got to finish it in time lest our wanker of a daddy will be pissed off and shit his metal pants.'

Limax sniffed and dropped a cable to the floor. 'He will hear us. Through the warp. How can you...'

'Watch out, you ham-handed wimp!' Aspersum bellowed reaching for another vial. 'He's a damn sissy just like you.'

'I heard he had torn off your arm, m'lord.'

'He's always been afraid his legionnaires find out he's nothing but a whiner under his awesome armour. That's why he would stomp his feet and jump in our faces like a cornered rat. His adopted dad tried to make him a real man but failed.'

Limax didn't answer. He crouched over the chassis, trying to solder capacitors to the motherboard but the tiny parts kept slipping out of his stiff fingers. Aspersum sneered at his efforts and took the motherboard from him.

'I bet you're even worse at fighting, milksop.'

Limax blinked his watering eyes. Even his face remained boyish through the long centuries. He'd been no soldier before he was chosen to serve in the legion. An apprentice at a small manufacture in Lochos. 'I was responsible for technical supplies in late Lord Helix's company.'

'Soon we'll see your talent for war. This server was commissioned by the Warmaster himself. He arrived to our daddy's fortress in person, and the damn nerd didn't even get out to say hello. How did the Warmaster speak to us gathered Warsmiths, like Perturabo had never done. About power and victory, about the Crimson Path that would lead us out of our disgraceful exile to the shining future of a new Imperium united under the true heir of Horus.'

Aspersum clenched his fist, his hearts beating quicker with the anticipation of coming battle. He burst out laughing when Limax instinctively humped his shoulders. 'Soon we'll sail out of the Eye when the cogitators calculate the road to Medusa. The Iron Hands are decent foes. Our pops would be glad to shit at their doors. He's always envied old headless Uncle Ferrus. But what I can say, I'd better have him as a gene-sire. At least I'd have been sure his gene-seed doesn't make me a sissy one day.'

'Another campaign before a Black Crusade?' Limax fixed another bound daemon on the motherboard.

'Better, milksop! I asked many questions to scoundrel Kibre when we were discussing the commission details. The Warmaster himself will lead us. Nine times he has already attacked wimpy Imperial scum, but the tenth Black Crusade will bring him the Throne of Terra.'


	2. I

The unexpected visitor appeared at the owl door in the evening of another empty summer day. After the failed hunt for Blackred DM the Conclave had seemingly forgotten about our existence. The cursed ship had dropped us on Uebotia a week before the Midsummer Day when richer citizens of the capital embarked for paradise world resorts, and the rest took their vacations to spend a fortnight or two in the countryside. We were passing the idle weeks in a cheap trailer park seventy kilometres away from the capital, my minimal wage only enough to pay for the rent and our everyday needs.

That day was especially lazy. I hadn't even walked away from the owl, sitting under a riverside oak with knitting needles. Fluffster and Uncle had gone to the nearby village to buy something for dinner. The sky in the west was getting pink, sunlight was pouring through the lower branches on the grass as the sun had descended to the city spires on the horizon. Chilly wind from the river rustled in the leaves. I placed a stitch marker before the shawl edging and lifted up my head from the knitting.

Fluffster climbed up the hillside basked in the torrents of orange sunshine. On seeing me, he took off his hood.

'Where's Uncle?' I asked him.

'There must be a mistake, Miss Volentia,' the cricetid answered in an unfamiliar voice. 'I happen to be Fluffster's friend. He should have told you about me. I'm currently known as Cricetus Persinicus, or Peachy.'

He came closer, and I could see the difference. Peachy was taller and more muscular, his glossy fur was neatly groomed. As his name suggested, his colouring was apricot tan that almost glowed in the evening sun. He nodded approvingly looking at my work.

'Such fine handicraft, dear Miss.'

'Thank you, sir.' I got up and gave him my hand. 'Let me greet you on behalf of my crew. Sorry for the empty fridge, Fluffster and Uncle will be back with the dinner. I'll text them to buy something special for you.'

'You're very kind. I hope I'm not a nuisance.'

I gave him a cheerful smile. 'Just the opposite. So glad you remember a small operative team that has spent two months twiddling their thumbs. Well, that's a good sign at least that there are fewer heretics during the summer season.'

'I wish there were,' he said with a sigh.

Something must have happened if another of the secretive team had decided to visit us in person. I recalled the last phrase Fluffster had said to the Phaerakh. 'The Silent King will get our answer soon.' My bored imagination painted a vivid picture of a Necron host appearing in the sky above Uebotia. Sadly, Lord Kryptopterus, my only contact in the sector Ordo Xenos, was still recovering from his injuries a few clusters away from here, and I wasn't sure he would treat me with understanding.

'Welcome to our modest home.' I led him to the owl and pulled aside the mosquito net.

'Nice to meet you, Sister, Battle-Brother.' He bowed his head to my stunned friends. 'It would be better to wait until everyone is back to discuss the news.'

'We've got many stories to tell so you won't be bored, sir.'

When Fluffster came into the owl with a bag of food, he wasn't even surprised to see his cricetid buddy talking to us. He let Uncle fuss around to set the table for the guest and sat next to me right when I began the tale about gambling with Aphedron in the smugglers' den. Peachy chuckled shaking his head, Sister pressed both hands to her mouth, thrilled by the memories of that venture. Unsure whether to trust the guest, I avoided the slippery topic of Torquetum shards.

'A splendid story,' said Fluffster after I had finished. 'The day when you began the honoured tradition of borrowing things from my locker.'

I winked at him. 'The sacred right of the Inquisition. You're lucky I'm not from Ordo Malleus.'

'Speaking of the Malleus,' said Peachy, 'Lady Cichlasoma sends you her greetings. Her report is one of the reasons why I'm here. The Masque of the Weeping Dawn spotted Aspersum's fleet on the forgotten road to the Eye. Their Shadowseer swore the shadow bark is to cross the way of the Fourth in all unraveling futures.'

Evening chill felt like wintry cold. My psychic senses caught the horrible image of the cursed ship even before my mind could recall it. 'Imudon has sent her to take the tower from Aspersum?'

'This hasn't been revealed yet. But I know about the promise you made to the shipmistress, Miss Volentia. I'm going to invite you to a safer place. The Morning Glory has just arrived in orbit.'

The sun was had set beyond the tall spires but Fluffster kept on driving the owl past forests and hills strewn with warm lights of cottage villages. Corydoras and Plodia usually spent their summers in a neat mansion north-west of the capital, when not on duty. We hadn't visited it yet, and though I missed my lifesavers and elder peers, I suspected it would be a kind of house arrest ordered by Lord Platydoras after my craftworld adventure.

We turned right at another crossroads, and a vast lake came in sight, smooth as a mirror under the rising moon. Bright lanterns lit up an island in the very center where a white manor house was towering over the lush greenery. A latticework bridge so airy it seemed hovering over the calm waters connected the lakeshore to a pier on the other side. We didn't even stop before the gate at the entrance to the bridge. Peachy typed a password code in the dialogue window of the owl, and we drove between rows of coloured lamps to the mansion park.

Wycke's house, Illicio's palace were boring and tasteless compared to this secluded shelter of an Inquisitor couple. We passed through a lovingly preserved woodland until we reached the inner hedgerow of red and white roses. The owl stopped at a high flower arch, and I stepped on the grass.

Danio Rerio the jolly hired gun was waiting for us in the garden. Unlike his superiors, times of trouble hadn't changed him at all.

We shook hands. 'So happy to be back to your crew.'

'You're welcome, Lady Volentia. You'll meet everyone soon. Plenty of tales to tell and hear, and an awesome party thrown for everybody after our safe return.'

Lanterns lit up among blooming bushes and flowerbeds as we passed by. When I climbed the stairway to the porch, tears rose to my eyes against my will. Four years that were still painful to recall. The old garden in my foster parents' cottage. I run down the stairs to greet them after the working day. It's summer while everything is fine yet.

Other psykers' presence distracted me from the sad memories. Two soul-flames next to a muffled dark spot. I blinked back my tears and bowed my head with a broad smile. The Corydoras couple were descending to the vast hall hand in hand. They were almost back to their old splendid selves, reconciled after the scandal and refreshed. Corydoras didn't look weary anymore, Plodia's once peaked face was getting round again, her regrowing hair was dyed bright scarlet. Old astropath Acrolux sent me a voiceless greeting from the balcony, and I waved at him.

'Sorry to have abandoned you for the whole summer,' said Plodia. 'Our latest commission had much to do with your trip to Iarmailt.'

The housekeeper showed us to Corydoras's quiet library in the back part of the mansion. If Plodia was to believe, her husband's love for cozy rooms matched that of her parents. Soft light of orange lamps filled the chamber packed with neat bookshelves with many thousands of ancient tomes and grimoires, artifact showcases, boxes of data cards. Corydoras leaned back in his velvet armchair, opened his portative cogitator and reached for a cup of coffee on a small table.

'We have done research on the previous encounters with the dark ship and its connection to the siege tower.' He put on his reading glasses and tapped on the screen to zoom in. We saw a scanned page of whimsical Aeldari script. 'The origins of the tower aren't connected to later cults of Tzeentch. In the times of the War in Heaven, ancestors of the present Aeldari race built engines of wraithbone and crystal to be guided by the most prominent psykers. Wraithknights of modern time are just pale likeness of even the small towers and engines of the Old War. The one excavated by the Fourth was called the Lost Queen and was first found during the times of the Great Crusade. The witch-king of Myristica ascended to daemonhood and hijacked the tower before Perturabo and Magnus could take it. They vanquished his army but their forces were too small to destroy the ancient engine so they had to bargain with the Masque of the Weeping Dawn to have the Lost Queen sealed in the hidden grave.'

Plodia watched him with admiration as he was lecturing us, lost in his discoveries. 'He's the smartest in the Conclave,' she whispered into my ear. 'If only he was ambitious enough, he would become a Lord Inquisitor famous all over the Galaxy.'

'The Harlequins know more than they wish to share.' Peachy was browsing an Ordo Xenos report on the Mask. 'Relentless hunters who never let their enemies go.'

'They would pursue the previous dark ships centuries ago,' said Corydoras. 'A similar cursed vessel appeared on the day the Primarchs engaged the witch-king's army. It was incinerated by the combined psychic might of Magnus's host and the Harlequin Masque but the Inquisition as well as xenos warhosts spotted it in another region of the Segmentum two centuries later.'

'A small shadow ship crafted in haste in the image of earlier nightmarish barges.' Fluffster handed his own dataslate to Corydoras. 'I managed to fill a few gaps while we were sailing. Show us what you found near Abilene.'

'Tomorrow,' answered Plodia. 'We recovered the witch-king's personal tome of sorcerous lore he'd written while searching for the Lost Queen. It reeks of the warp, and I have to prepare the null-machinery for safer storage and reading. He clashed with the ship but used forbidden knowledge to come out alive.'

When we finished with their expedition picts and reports, it was two past midnight. We planned to study the tome next day till afternoon when the couple was going to throw a family party to celebrate their return. I retreated to a guest bedroom over the library to have a nap in the calm house.

I woke up at a sharp sound of shattered glass. Shrill cries echoed in the rooms. Plodia's voice. I grabbed my weapons and rushed downstairs in my night tunic, blood pounding in my head. The past nightmare returns. Yet now I'm strong enough to fight back.

Plodia darted out from behind the closed library door and nearly knocked me over. On seeing my laspistol she shook her head and ran towards the backdoor, her flashy makeup smeared with tears. The mansion was quiet again. I peeped into the library ready to combat any horror within.

There were no heretics or daemons. Corydoras was standing by his armchair examining the broken coffeepot at his feet. Coffee was dripping down his dressing gown. He shrugged his shoulders with an uneasy smile.

'Sorry for a false alarm. That's what family life looks like. She'll spend some time in the garden crying and everything will be fine as before. I should order a new coffee set tomorrow.'

I closed the door in confusion. Angel and Sister appeared at the door, startled by the noise the same as me.

'That's the difference between us and mature people,' I told them. 'Uncle and Fluffster knew what it was.'

The joke was a miss. They stared back with still growing anxiety. I dismissed them and went out to the garden to have a stroll and calm down after the painful flashbacks.

Plodia was sobbing on a bench under a spreading copper beech. I sat next to her struggling with sickness as her inhibitor was turned off.

I waited for a few seconds but then then asked her, 'What's happened, Lady Plodia?'

'You'll understand when you get a mate.' She wiped makeup stains from her fingers with a paper napkin. 'He was never going to challenge the Panther for a combat to win me back. He's wearing glasses and reading his books like a schoolteacher's pet. I admired his power of an Inquisitor when we met. I put him on a pedestal, but he always jumps down.'

I nodded, unsure what to say back. The Panther had mocked Corydoras's calm attitude and Plodia's desire for showoff when we were riding to the Palace. Being a witness to a drama of middle age boredom made me feel like an intruder. Circus play I'd seen from within in my first mission.

The housekeeper appeared from behind the tree. 'Lady Volentia.'

I got up and headed to the door.

'You're new to this place,' the housekeeper whispered. 'This is a sacred tradition of the family. Especially after Master Aeneus grew up. Lovers' quarrels are quick to heal. On the morrow they'll coo at each other at the breakfast table as if nothing happened.'

In the morning I woke up later than usual, with a terrible headache. To my surprise, the couple was still sleeping, but the house was alive with cheerful voices. Retinue acolytes and sailors of the Morning Glory crew were chatting in the big guest room waiting for the breakfast. I saw familiar faces and waved my hand. Danio Rerio was talking to Garra Taeniata, his quiet assassin wife, Sister Pomatia was drinking coffee to stay awake after the vigil mass she'd attended in the Basilica of Saint Botia on the return. An armchair in a shaded corner was occupied by Pookon, Plodia's sourly navigator, who slouched over his dataslate, his hood pulled down to his nose.

Uncle smiled at me from another corner where he was playing cards with a band of sailors. I found a place on the sofa next to Rerio and Taeniata, and soon Angel and Sister joined us. Time passed with vacation ease, and only a couple hours later, after a full breakfast in the main dining room, we found our way to the library. Fluffster and Peachy were the only ones who had ignored the morning gathering, sitting over the maps and grimoires of the archive instead.

When I entered the library with Corydoras and Plodia, both cricetids were arguing in a language I didn't know over the yesterday Aeldari text. On the coffee table I saw a transparent showcase with about ten Aquila sigils fixed on the surface. Inside the case there was a small tome set in silvery metal the size of a pocketbook. I tried to probe it with my psychic sight but the null field of blackstone pieces on the case lid didn't let me see anything.

'Take care, Volentia,' said Fluffster. 'Even soulbound psykers have to open it with great care. Its deranged author named it the Mirror Shard, and what it shows you can drive you insane.'

'The sorcerer said, the mark prevents extreme effects,' I lowered my voice so Peachy didn't hear me.

Peachy frowned and answered before Fluffster could, 'Not in all cases. Sometimes it even makes things worse.'

Corydoras leaned over the case and pressed on the clasps. It opened without a sound, and a subtle whisper reached me. The Mirror Shard floated up, hovering before the Inquisitor's eyes, its pages turning by themselves, so quickly they looked like a silvery cloud. I reached for the book, and it stopped in mid-air, opened in the middle. The specular surface of its blank pages reflected my face as I stepped closer. Black veins ran over the forehead and cheeks, the pages rippled like a pool of quicksilver. In a second black shadow fell over the reflection, and where the eyes had been, two red embers stared at me. I felt the thing inside see me. A stray thought sent chills down my spine. My own cry echoed in my ears. Corydoras slapped the book shut.

I breathed out and pulled Fluffster by the paw. 'A shrine shadow. It took my place in the mirror. Warning, or creeping possession?'

'I told you not to stare into the Mirror Shard,' he grumbled. 'It has nothing to do with Imudon. The more you read it, the more meaningless fears poison your mind.'

'You hide something again, for sure. You spoke to the Necrons in their own tongue and taught me how to pacify a fragment of an Old One aflame with wrath. You know much about things but have your reasons to...'

'I'm sorry, Volentia, Lord Crinitus.' Corydoras took off his glasses and cleaned them with a wet wipe. 'But I've just found the shadow ship description in the grimoire. And a spell that the witch-king used to temporarily bind it to his will and escape. Then he found another way to subdue the Eldar daemon prince of the tower, not knowing his name.'

Fluffster and Peachy engaged in a vivid discussion of matters I was barely aware of. Another mentioning of the War in Heaven. As if almost anything that happened around had distant roots in an epoque as far as that. The Great War the Phaerakh recalled with awe. They didn't give me another chance to have another glimpse of the cursed book, neither did they give useful answers for my questions. All I could find out was their obscure intention to catch up with the shadow ship before it engages the Iron Warriors.

In the afternoon the Inquisitors gave up the brainstorm attempts to finish the preparations for the evening party. The last reception I'd visited was the drug soirée on the Macan Kumbang, and I hoped a gathering of friendly people would cheer me up. I took out the Alackaday dress I hadn't worn since the ill-fated seaside holiday and borrowed a necklace from Plodia. Uncle repaired my party shoes bought for the visit to 'Hog'n'Shroom'.

First guests started arriving after the sun had set. When I went out for a stroll in the garden lit by garlands of colourful lamps, Aeneus Corydoras passed by with a richly dressed lady. He greeted me with an easy smile and kept on chattering with his dame who blushed and giggled to his jokes. Before the stairway an elderly couple exchanged noisy greetings with Plodia and Corydoras. They tried to hug Plodia but she took them by the hands nodding at the open doors. A stout woman in a glittery skin-tight dress appeared from a back alley. Plodia said a few words to Corydoras and ran to meet the new guest, her best friend Dolbona Svoa.

I came closer. Corydoras noticed me and took a break from the conversation, relieved to share the burden of talking. The elderly couple smiled at me, and I bowed down.

'This is Lady Volentia, our friend from the Conclave,' Corydoras presented me. 'Lord and Lady Interpunctella, my honoured parents-in-law.'

Plodia's mother, a frail woman with wistful eyes, was leaning on her cheerful husband's arm, more listening than chatting. They were both similar in looks to their rebellious daughter but utterly different by the general impression. Modest and kindly unlike most rich merchants, they huddled together, as if intimidated by the luxury and rowdiness of the party garden.

'We've heard so many good things about you from Plodia, my lady,' said Plodia's father. 'Paleatus should address Lord Platydoras to ensure your promotion. A revered Agent of the Throne mustn't be forced to live in a trailer.'

'Thank you for your support, sir,' I answered, touched by their sincere friendliness. 'But often a modest owl trailer gives better protection than a house in the open. Enemies of the Imperium are always ready to assault His servants.'

Both made signs of the Aquila. 'May the Emperor protect you.'

'Lady Volentia barely survived the assault on her Inquisitor foster parents' mansion when she was an adolescent,' said Corydoras. 'She and the mercenary from her retinue were the only survivors.'

'What a horrible, ungodly accident.' Plodia's mother gave me a look of sad compassion. 'Lady Volentia, you're a daughter of heroes and should be treated like one. You deserve the same well-being your late parents had.'

'Sadly, my lady, scandals get more attention than heroes nowadays.' I smiled despite a lump in my throat. 'As for the well-being, my mentor and guardian drank away everything they'd left behind. I'm sorry, that doesn't fit the party atmosphere at all.'

Svoa's loud snicker startled the elderly spouses before they could answer. Plodia's mother recoiled and pressed herself to her husband's shoulder. Svoa walked up to us, shimmering in the lamplight from head to toe, a smoking lho stick in her plump hand. She gave Corydoras a peck on the cheek without ceremony, then greeted the Interpunctellas with an easy curtsey.

'Lady Svoa, let us express our respect for you and your valiant husband.' Plodia's father bowed his head.

'I wish he could have joined us but things are getting hot around Abilene.' She turned to me and burst out laughing. 'Miss Volentia, old bat Melitara was talking my ear off about your horrid joint venture when I came to visit her in the hospital. She was going to return the gems to you. Haven't seen the prude so butthurt. She had been so proud she hadn't replaced her heart for a hundred years.'

'I hope she's fine now,' I said. 'I still appreciate her loyalty and courage.'

'What I can say for sure, she would hardly agree to work with the Ordo ever since.' Svoa smirked and drew in on her stick.

Later, hearty talks at the festive dinner gave me a long gone feeling of celebration. Everyone forgot about mishaps. Plodia's parents were describing wonderful perspectives of spice cultivation on Myristica after late Illicio's plantations had been bought by the Interpunctella cartel. When I drank another glass of wine and told a story about my bargains with smuggler captains, they shook their heads and promised to find a better candidate among the cartel traders. Even Ephestia, who was far away with another mission, sent a ThoughtMark greeting through Acrolux, and he uploaded the vid-log to the big screen on the wall so all could see it.

Past midnight, party guests scattered around the garden. Uncle joined the sailors to play another round at cards. At the sounds of music Aeneus led his buddies to a fountain to dance between bright flowerbeds of dahlias and sword-lilies. Older guests gathered around refreshment stalls, absorbed in lively talks. I invited Angel and Sister to join the youths but they found a quiet bench next to a cake stall and sat still with paper dishes on their knees, listening to the chattering.

I shrugged my shoulders and headed to the fountain. Once I stepped into the shade of a big oak, I felt cold coming from the unlit outer part of the garden. Piercing warp cold, not the late summer breeze from the lake like before. Unarmed, I stopped. I should warn the hosts, with all care to avoid panic among the guests. But then a call reached my mind. Too discreet to identify the stranger. I glimpsed into the dark, and my soul shivered at the sinister chill.

Psychic frost was glimmering on the stone tiles of the garden path. I stepped forth, ready to cry out at any second. A small pavilion hidden in dark evergreen foliage was covered in hoarfrost up to the roof, and stench of sulphur and rot was lingering around. A human figure was crouching on the steps, lit by crimson glints of unlight coming from the inside. My heart sank when the stranger raised her head.

'What the hell are you staring at, wench?' said the cursed ship's captain. 'Well met. And don't tell me you forgot what you promised me after Iarmailt.'


	3. II

She seemed to have aged since we last had met though I knew there was no time in the nightmarish real she came from. Her face frozen, her shoulders drooping, she looked at rustling leaves above and coloured lamps over the noisy peopled paths around the mansion.

'Sit down with me for a while.' She grabbed my wrist with her icy fingers. 'What damn happy bastards are you all here.'

I shook frost off the edge of the bottom step. 'Not fun to be you.'

'You still dare to whine while you can see things like that every day. Not the shrine. Not the undervaults where I spent months if not years with my crew after I delivered the broken blade to the First Acolyte alone.'

'You want revenge?'

She gritted her teeth. 'You promised to grant my wish in exchange for your life. It's time to pay. The First Acolyte sent me to intercept Aspersum and the Lost Queen. I know you're pursuing him as well. So I might take you on board if...' She stopped as if plucking up her courage. 'I heard the One you serve is stronger than the powers worshipped in the shrine. Find a way to end my pain.'

The daemon inside her gave out a cackle, and a grimace of agony distorted her peaked face.

'Let's go to the ours,' I said. 'Peachy, Fluffster, Corydoras will take you to a safe place. Have a rest with the guests, tomorrow I'll write to Lady Cichlasoma so she sends an exorcist to Uebotia.'

She pursed her scarred lips. 'No way. I cannot go away from the ship while I'm bound by the oath. The master of the shrine will lock us all in the undervaults forever.'

'Stay here then. I'll call them. I'll bring you snacks from the stalls.'

'I don't eat anymore. Food turns to ashes when I try it. Bring your crew and let's embark. No other ship can overtake Aspersum on his way to the Eye. Once we are there, my last vow is fulfilled. You'll release us and be free to fight the Iron Fleet. I won't disturb you again then. It probably ends my life at last.'

She reached out and picked up a leaf from the ground. For a few seconds she was looking at it with a half-smile but it withered at the touch of her fingers and crumbled to dust. I got up.

'Stay here.'

Before she could object, I was already running back to the guests. The hosts had retreated to a grotto hidden from sight by reddening wild grapes and clematis flowers. I pulled the vines aside and saw Peachy who stood at the entrance talking about the defense of the Cadian Gate. Plodia's parents sat at the wall, their anxious eyes fixed on the cricetid. The mother was the first to notice me.

'Lady Volentia, are you fine? Your face has turned so pale.'

'There's a working question to be solved, hopefully, a matter of minutes.' I nodded in the most reassuring way. 'I only need a bit of advice from Lord Corydoras and Lady Interpunctella.'

Both got the hint at once. Followed by Fluffster, they got out of the the grotto while Peachy stayed, talking to the elderly couple as before. The party was going on a few metres away from the frost-covered path to the portal. Corydoras slowed down to reach out with his psyker-sight, then pulled Plodia close to himself.

'The ship you wanted to see is here,' I said.

'Perfect camouflage,' admitted Corydoras. 'Peachy was right. Even I wouldn't have felt its presence if you weren't around. The mark allows you to hear the call.'

'The warpseer has been sent to fight Aspersum but... Her wish was hard to believe. She wants to break free from Imudon's grip.'

'Priceless.' Fluffster's dispassionate attitude left him. 'The old goon couldn't have ever thought.'

He didn't let me ask any further questions but took out his dataslate and typed in a few quick lines. Crimson warp-light was oozing through the tree boughs, the horrible cold pierced me to the bone as I stepped on the ice before the pavilion. The captain was where I'd left her, huddled like a beggar on a winter night. At the sound of steps she opened her swollen eye.

'How sweet, gentlemen and ladies have come to see the dirtiest scum! You'll be pointing your fingers at me, proud that you're better. It's easy, isn't it? Nutty underhive mutants, thugs and murderers are still better men than me.'

'Everyone associated with Chaos is almost always excessively edgy,' Corydoras whispered to us.

The captain grinned showing her broken teeth. 'Edgy, he says. A golden boy from the heart of the Imperium. You eat gold and shit gold. Your dumbass wife wanted to become a servant of Chaos in another tantrum to piss off her chickenkind of a family.'

'You daemon-whore, how you ever dare...' Plodia started, her hand already on the inhibitor.

Fluffster put his paw on her shoulder. 'Plodia, a measuring contest of sins is utterly ridiculous. Captain, shouldn't you keep in mind that no world is beyond His rule, no enemy beyond His wrath?'

'They haven't taught me that in the shrine,' she sneered. 'Sounds like you gonna burn me. Come on, once we're finished with the Lost Queen, but make sure our souls don't go to that cursed place after death.'

The daemon's screeching nearly silenced her last words. Plodia tugged at her inhibitor. My guts spasmed at a null outbreak but the noise ceased.

Fluffster met the captain's glare undisturbed. 'At least you don't wish to stay in the ranks of His enemies.'

'Sick of your blabbing, you overgrown mouse. Find the remaining three, put on your armour and get in.'

'We're also going with you,' said Corydoras. 'I'll call my retinue.'

''You're going to shag yourself along with your cheeky wife,' the captain snarled. 'I haven't invited you.'

'Well, listen here.' I sat next to the captain. 'Lord Corydoras is a strong soulbound psyker, unlike me, he's driven out even meaner daemons than the one inside you. And a blank like Lady Plodia is the best when you found yourself exposed to the Immaterium. They have an ancient grimoire where it's written how to deal with your warp-bucket.'

She was pondering for a few minutes in silence, then said not looking at the couple, 'Don your suits. But no other goons of your crew allowed.'

Corydoras turned to Plodia. 'Let's warn your parents.'

She frowned. 'Not that. My head will explode when they go bonkers with panic again. I'll tell Aeneus, let him give 'em the patter, he knows how to. I hope we'll come back soon.'

'It's warp, dummy,' said the captain. 'Last time I got to the destination in hours, next time it might take minutes in the Sea of Souls and millennia in the realspace.'

Plodia looked her up and down with demonstrated contempt, then turned her back on her and took Corydoras by the hand. I nodded at Fluffster and stood up.

The captain got up to her feet as well. 'I'll wait till the day starts breaking in the eastern sky. If you dump me, I'll come back on a day when you won't expect me, and no one will shield you from the shadows. They will drag you to the shrine master's cold dungeons. All of you, along with your families and friends. I'll hear you scream after you fall in the First Acolyte's hands.'

'A disgusting skank you are.' My nerves failed me. I clenched my fist and swung it at her leering face.

Her fingers clasped on my wrist. I gasped and doubled over at a swift punch in the solar plexus. Catching for air, I gripped Fluffster's paw.

'Wanna fight me? I was about twelve in Terran years when three goons from another pack ambushed me in the rock burrows. They ripped my side open with a stone knife and broke my leg. One of my own packmates tried to help me, even though it was forbidden. They bludgeoned him to death but I climbed up on a ledge and smashed their heads with boulders. Wimps like you were eaten alive where I grew up.'

We returned to the portal half an hour later, fully equipped for the trip. That was no easy decision but I left the owl behind in the mansion garage. Fluffster had taken an arc rifle and a box of tools and gadgets from his locker. The captain swore the Iron Fleet was in the Imperial space so we wouldn't get stuck on a daemon world or in the Webway when, or I'd say if she lost her vessel. There was a point in being homeless, I thought looking at the Inquisitor couple who lingered for a few seconds before going in to have another wistful glimpse of their house. My home was where the only close people were.

The portal closed. We were walking along the distorted corridors through choking brimstone mist. Daemonic faces on the walls met us with grimaces of mockery and contempt, warp orbs had gone so few and dim the inside of the ship drowned in night gloom. Crimson veins on the walls formed lines of glowing runes but darkness was even deeper against their unlight. Previously crowded by cultists, the decks were empty and silent as a giant mausoleum. Wordless daemonhost sailors stood still here and there, their bodies so rotten and deformed they were about to fall apart, and malodorous smoke was oozing through crude seams on their faces and trunks.

'Even last time it was a livelier place,' I hummed.

'Screw you,' the captain snapped back. 'The ship's heart devoured everyone. Like it did on the accursed day when I came to the altars.'

When we got to the bridge, I sat down on the navigator platform. Heavy aether clouds the colour of smoke and fresh blood rushed by beyond the oculus. Two daemonhosts stood on guard on both sides of the captain's throne, orbs of spectral fire flickering in their empty sockets. Angel and Sister hugged, Uncle spat on the floor and folded his hands in the sacred sign.

I pointed at the glass case in Corydoras's hands. 'Cap, this grimoire tells the story of a similar ship that sailed through the warp in the times of the Great Crusade. How did you get the yours?'

'It got me.' She tore off her eye patch and threw it down to the throne dais. 'It floated out of the closed gate when a Neverborn was sealed within my shattered body. Cultist priests herded in a thousand slaves. The ship's heart called out to them, and they rushed to the call. Once they touched it, they crumbled to dust.'

'Dreams come true,' said Fluffster. 'But show me one who's content afterwards.'

'I'll have you dumped to the reactor, furry shithead,' she snarled. 'The First Acolyte let me see the sky. Even the last rays of day, when I was lucky enough. Just because one day a guy from our pack had called us to gawk at a new band of sacrifice slaves. Children are nosy. We were discouraged to talk to the captives but we wanted to know more about the life outside the unworld.'

I recalled the talk in the mess. 'You became the leader of the pack after you had decided to run away.'

'I was a witch, and learned how to impose my will on the others. They started working for my goal. That shouldn't have happened, but I realized they were my friends. My brothers and sisters. We tried to break through to the port. Even when furies tore two of us to pieces, that didn't stop us. One of us thought of ditching us, but my witch-skills warned me before she could give us away to the overseers. I choked her in her sleep. I was expected to sacrifice my band to the gods, and so did I.'

She turned away with a grimace, and warp-flame lit in her bloody eye socket as she entered the navigation trance to set the course. We had but to trust her seeming good will, sailing by the stormy tides to parts unknown. She didn't allow us to venture far from the bridge where contours of shadow-woven shapes appeared from the gloom on the edge of our sight.

In a little dirty pavilion on a lower platform we hung holy symbols on the walls to keep the horrors at bay. Daemonhosts shunned us for Plodia's blankness but we knew it would barely let her defend us against the shrine shadows. The case with the sinister book was glowing from inside, a constant reminder of tempting powers. Corydoras touched it from time to time but jerked back his hand. I knelt down beside Angel and Sister. I wasn't sure whether prayers could really pull us out of this shit but I had to try at least.

An eternity later we heard the captain's call. The bridge was overcast with thick, unnatural darkness where even fiery orbs cast no glints, as if the prison dimension where I'd spent the trip to the shrine was growing to devour the ship. The oculus was plain black, both reality and unreality had vanished where we stopped.

'On the spot. Get outta here to warn the yours. But some of you have to stay on board,' the captain shouted from her throne.

'What's this bloody place?' I shouted back.

'A forge world. Aspersum laid siege to the main citadel of the Fabricator-General and is close to obtaining his goal. Pricey relic machinery to repair the Lost Queen.'

'Volentia, you've got experience,' Fluffster said all of a sudden. 'I gave you a few utility codes when we were studying basic tech-lore. We three will wait for you here.'

'You told me tech-priests prefer their own kind to talk to.'

'I doubt you encounter any. Take this warp beacon and try to stick it to any of the enemy vehicles.'

A small spot of white light appeared on the opposite wall. It expanded until we saw a piece of dark rainy skies and a charred fragment of a metal wall. Brimstone stench gave way to a wistful smell of damp and smoke. I stepped into the portal, my hand on the chainsword hilt.

It was a ruined annex building of a Mechanicus fortress. Bundles of charred cables lay in pools of rainwater that kept dripping through molten apertures in the walls and ceiling. A few lockers lay overturned and emptied on the floor. Smoking remains of a data server towered in the center, all storage modules removed from the chassis. Gun turrets at the entrance had been blown up by the attackers, even the massive doors had turned into a pile of scrap-metal. I concentrated to catch at least a faint trace of human presence. Out of my reach.

Angel marched first into the unlit corridor, his bolter ready to put down any enemy. Another pile of metal barricaded the passage a dozen steps away. When I lowered my flashlight, I cussed and whispered a litany. Bionic limbs, augmented heads ripped off from the bodies by some inhuman power. Even the Skitarii, the blessed military elite of the Omnissiah, were unable to withstand the threat. If Fluffster was here, he'd have read a prayer of their kind. An almost whole arc pistol lay at the wall but I didn't dare to pick it up under Sister's reproachful stare.

A feeble warp trace was lingering in the passages, growing stronger as we moved through the building. Navigation satellites had been destroyed, and the map of my dataslate didn't work. Daylight flickered far ahead after a few turns. Angel reached the end of the corridor first and looked out from behind the wall.

A wide ramp led to a spacious hall of the local data-sanctuary where a few icons of the Machine Cult still remained on the walls and server pillars, but multiple blasts had shattered the vitrail dome above. Bleak light was pouring down through the ravaged frame, shards of stained glass covered the floor in an abstract mosaic pattern. Behind the defiled altar an entire wall fragment was missing, revealing a courtyard and the ruins of the outer wall. Almost merging with the rockcrete grey, a battered Predator tank was parked at the wall, hazard stripes of the Fourth barely visible through the soot.

Flashes of yellow on the courtyard tiles caught my eyes, and I took Uncle's binoculars. Angel's muffled growl came from the vox as the augmented senses of his armour had noticed that earlier than me. Bolt-ridden corpses of Imperial Fists space marines buried under torn bodies of cultists. Melting snow under the rampart and pools of rainwater were pink with blood.

Angel raised his bolter and waved his claws at us. I sensed humans on the other side of the sanctuary wall. They appeared in the breach a few seconds later. Led by a Chaos Techmarine, two Iron Warriors in burnt armour dragged a captive Imperial Fist to the tank. The Techmarine knelt down to have a look at the smoking engine. Wraithbone tools of his mechandendrites cut through the mauled armour. He took a small ampule from his belt pouch and mounted it on another extensive servo-limb that protracted from under his pauldron. The servo-limb drilled through the captive's armour but the Imperial Fist didn't even flinch. The Techmarine made a few brisk gestures to the other traitors and headed back.

'We mustn't let him die.' Angel made a step forward to soar up on his jump pack.

I slapped him on the back. 'The three veterans will bury you without Fluffster's aid. Uncle's gun will only vex them.'

When one of the Iron Warriors turned to the tank, the captive kicked him on the shin and released his left arm with a brisk tug. Yet his strength failed him. Both traitors pinned him down and tore off his helmet. The captive uttered a few words I couldn't hear but the first legionnaire punched him in the face with his spiky gauntlet. Fresh red blood splattered over the yellow and grey ceramite. Weakened by the injection, the captive could barely fight back when they threw him onto the tank armour. Blood drops rolled down the charred surface, and I felt the warp around condense and resonate.

'They're going to sacrifice him to their foul daemon masters!' Sister rushed forward but Uncle caught her by the hood before she could jump down to the sanctuary.

'No nonsense, the bastards will be as eager to nail you to their tank,' he said.

'They want to repair the engine.' I took the binoculars away from my face but the echo of the captive's pain reached me even here, amplified by the traitors' ritual.

'It's a tank we can use to stick the beacon. Please.' Sister gripped her Eviscerator.

'Only if you all stay away. I'll try to sneak there alone in cultist rags. I should have picked up the pistol. Its Skitarius owner doesn't need it anymore.'

'There's nothing you can do for my Battle-Brother. Or willing to do, I'd say,' Angel spat out. 'We have to act by ourselves.'

Silence burst with blasts of bolter fire. When I put the binoculars back to my eyes, brains and ceramite shards had scattered over the hull, and the headless body of an Iron Warrior, supported by the still working armour, made a step forward and bumped into the Predator. The second one released the captive already pinned to the tank like an entomological exhibit and fired his own weapon at the sanctuary. A server pillar collapsed with a bright blast.

I opened my mouth to shout a warning but before I could say a single word Angel was gone. Loud buzz of the jump pack engine echoed in the passage, and three hundred kilos of holy wrath came down upon the surviving traitor. The Iron Warrior ducked behind the tank and fired again. Red on red, blood ran from a gaping hole in Angel's side. A roar of ire deafened me.

I pulled out the vox bead, my eyes fixed on the fierce combat. Angel's power claw hacked through the traitor's pauldron and breastplate. Crushing blows fell in a hail. A swift strike nearly tore the Iron Warrior's hand off. His bolter clanged against the tank armour. He had no melee weapon, and though he was stronger than Angel, he failed to fight with the same fury. Uncle's gunfire took him unawares. The traitor stumbled upon the corpse of his buddy, and Angel attacked again. Sparkling claw-blades dug into a cleft on the enemy's breastplate and ripped his chest open. The Iron Warrior staggered and fell face down, his primary heart punctured.

Angel raised his gory gauntlet, a triumphing barbarian awoken inside the shy goody-goody once again. He was cooler this way, I could admit. Other Iron Warriors were nowhere to be seen. I stuffed back the vox and waved at my crew. Stepping carefully on slippery metal, we descended to the sanctuary.

Distant rumble reached my ears. A column ahead broke into a hundred pieces. I ducked under a collapsing side vault, and small splinters rained on my hat through the breaches above. The next hit split the altar in two.

'Rhino bolt shells,' said Uncle pulling Sister under cover. 'Grazed the little one.'

'I'm afraid for brother.' She pressed on her split forearm, but blood trickled between her fingers.

While she was binding her wound, I crawled to the next vault. Another salvo tore down a whole fragment of the front wall. We kept on moving with short crawls or runs, taking cover in still standing niches or behind piles of rubble. The enemies probably thought Angel was just another survivor, so they were going to save up their shells. Otherwise, they would have demolished the sanctuary with bombs or heavy cannon fire.

When I reached the Predator, Angel had taken the captive off the hull. The wraithbone blade that had pinned the Imperial Fist to the armour lay broken beside him, warp-smoke visible to the psyker-sight rising to the damaged engine. Similar spectral matter was slowly growing along the edges of the aperture. I let Sister fuss over the captive and first of all unpacked the beacon. Its magnet attachment stuck to the inside of the armour.

After a few stimulator injections the Imperial Fist stood up holding to the tank. A yesterday's Neophyte, he frowned his eyebrows so that his youthly face looked stern. The exit wound in his trunk was far from inspirational but his I doubted he ever paid attention to such details, with his Chapter's stubborn attitude. He folded his hands in the sign of the Aquila on seeing my rosette, staring at me so he was to die with a heroic sacrifice right on the spot. I'd heard the Imperial Fists always looked like they had just eaten a generous lump of shit but reality had turned out to be even more impressive.

'Now I should return to the combat against the enemies of the Imperium,' he grumbled through gritted teeth.

'Put on your helmet and choose a trophy bolter,' I answered. 'Then we'll go to a good place to fill this amazing gap in your chest.'

'My lady, I will stand against the traitors even without touching their impure armaments.' He wiped dried blood from his smashed lips and donned his helmet. 'A minor flesh wound will not distract me from doing my duty.'

'I thought you'd at least thank us. Guys from Necromunda are swell, they said.'

He coughed. 'I am from Inwit.'

'You ignored the first part, brother.' Angel shook his head.

'Aye, sergeant! The Emperor will reward you for your assistance in our noble cause, my lady,' the Imperial Fist said solemnly. 'My name is Polymnus Amphiprion, and I hail from the second company...'

'You'd better shut up for now,' I stopped him. 'What we really should do is to bugger off from here before the Iron Warriors blow us up.'

Once I finished the phrase, the tank shuddered at a direct hit.

'That's going to be a kaboom,' said Angel. 'Everybody, take cover!'

I shouted at my crew and darted to the sanctuary walls. In a few seconds I threw myself down to the floor, pressing my hands to my ears. Last what I saw was Angel pushing the Imperial Fist to shield us. Next moment, the earth beneath shivered at the mighty blast.


	4. III

Haywired, nearly stunned, I rubbed my eyes. Greasy smoke was pulling from the outside. I shook rubble from my coat and looked up over sitting Angel's shoulder. The tank tower blown off by the explosion, seven tons of smouldering metal, lay at the outside wall. The part of the hull with the beacon was molten. I breathed out and cussed wearily.

Uncle sat up with effort, pressing his hand to his back. 'Life reminds me I'm old like shit.' He saw the tower and chuckled. 'When I was as young as you, our regiment was sent to the Silurian battlefronts. The heretics had tanks so beat-up they blew up at a fart. More tank towers were flying across the sky than even Valkyries. On a good day, they would fall down and crush an enemy ringleader. But on a particularly good day, they would fall on a Commissar.'

'Our captain is not easy to crush with that,' Amphiprion said in his fully serious tone.

'Your company should fight heretical armies equipped with Baneblades than. They're heavier.' For the first time since we had met, Angel showed patronizing humour. Despite the bonds of our crew, he felt natural with his peers only.

'We do, sergeant.' Amphiprion nodded. 'Captain Helion is a valiant warrior who wears heavy armour. The First Company under Captain Lysander is equipped with the most revered tactical dreadnought suits. We should keep in mind the exact mass of the tank model we are about to face.'

I couldn't believe my ears when I heard Angel chuckle like Uncle before. 'Friends, pardon my Battle-Brother for his lack of imagination.'

'I obey the rules of the Codex Astartes and the orders of superiors, sir!' Amphiprion rapped out.

'You follow the laws your gene-sire accepted only grudgingly.'

'Do not take this as disrespect to your rank, Sergeant,' Amphiprion spoke with less enthusiasm, 'but I am not the one to question the laws. Like Lord Dorn, I will be loyal till my last breath.'

He stopped, and the slurpy noise of his breathing came from his helmet speakers. When Sister took off his helmet again, fresh blood was dripping from the corners of his mouth.

'Good boy,' I grumbled. 'Hope you'll take with dignity the fact that we cannot deliver you to your company right now.'

'We have to return.' Sister looked up from the wounds she was cleaning. 'Both injuries need proper treatment.'

'I am ready to follow you to your ship, my lady,' said Amphiprion.

'Swear by the name of your forefather you won't freak out at the sight of the merry rubber boat we've hired.'

'Mistrusting the authority of a loyal servant of the Throne is treason by itself. For Lord Dorn and the honour of the Imperial Fists, I will fight for you without doubt.'

I gave him a hearty smile. 'You're exactly what I need for the job. There're many to ask stupid questions but few who are ready to do what is needed from them.'

Bolter fire had ceased. We crossed the demolished sanctuary, sneaking between piles of rubble and disfigured remains of servers and storages. Angel scanned the passages at the head of the line, Amphiprion brought the rear, armed with a metal bar he'd torn off from a storage rack. Every step echoed far away in the emptiness of the corridors. Rain had turned into drizzle, and the wind threw lumps of wet snow through ceiling breaches on corpses and freezing pools of blood and amniotic fluid.

I humped my shoulders when a strong gust hit me in the face. My scarf and coat got damp and heavy but I paced on quicker to get out of the forsaken place. The summer heat of Uebotia was but a dream that had vanished an eternity ago. If anything but the darkness of the cursed ship existed at all. The shipmistress's offer had too much of a trap. I wasn't obliged to care for Imudon's profit, the bargain with the First Acolyte included nothing but silence. Though if he demanded to slay the captain in the name of the gods... I'd already fallen to the bottom and a bit lower but a sacrifice, probably witnessed by fellow Inquisitors, would bring me beyond redemption. What I could tell for sure, the captain feared him much more than the Dark Apostle himself.

Angel stopped. A jet of blue fire squirted out of a dark side passage. It hit the wall right over Sister's head, and psychic sickness struck me. A looming shape appeared from the unlit end of the corridor. Another one rushed out of the side passage, paying little attention to our gunfire. My flashlight beam caught two remotely human forms crafted from metal and wraithbone. Their forms were crude and devoid of any elegance, like all creations of the Iron Warriors, but they moved as swiftly as Space Marines. Their multiple limbs carried whimsical firearms as well as melee weapons. Sealed deep within their chests marked with the death mask, sparks of dark fire flickered in the psychic sight.

Bolts and laser beams left torn holes in their polished bodies but pale spectral flesh started growing in veins from wraithbone pieces, weaving into patches over the wounds. The closest automaton lashed out with a witchblade. I fell to one knee behind Angel's back. The blade clashed against his power claw. A severed claw tip tinkled against the tiles.

Sister swung her chainblade, and the sealed daemon screeched. Two of the mechanical limbs fell off at a single strike of the blessed greatsword. The second automaton was coming from the corridor. Its right leg had been destroyed by bolter fire. Smoke was belching from a burning hole in its horned head. It uttered a roar when Angel rushed to stand in its way. Similar in height and shape, the superhuman warrior and the possessed machine got into it in the narrow part the th passage.

All I could do was to keep firing at the first automaton from behind Amphiprion's bulky shape. The stoic Imperial Fist took shots of warp-fire on his already mauled armour with devoted resilience. The metal bar was as deadly in his hands as the automaton's witch-armaments. Of us all, Sister dealt the biggest damage to the enemy as daemonic powers faded in the psychic radiance of her faith.

Angel's victory yell echoed in the vault. He slammed the headless automaton into the wall. The only remaining limb twitched, trying to reach for the crushed head that lay at the opposite wall. We rushed forward before it could restore its power. The automaton we had been fighting at the side passage went after us. Vines of growing unflesh covered almost every inch of its bolt-ridden surface. Glowing eyes stared at us from the gaping blade wounds, inset guns kept on firing warp-flame. It kept distance to avoid the Eviscerator but didn't slow down pursuing us through the corridors.

Smoke was rising over Amphiprion's armour suit. He brought the rear as a living shield against the unceasing attacks. A living wall, like all sons of Dorn would name themselves with pride. I looked back and smiled at him with approval. He nodded, moving right to take another shot. The bandages on his wound had been burnt. Ceramite plates had cracked where warp lightnings had hit them, revealing the torn bodyglove and black charred flesh. A weaker man should have succumbed to maddening mutations, but Dorn's stubborn resilience was shared by all his offspring.

At the next turn, when scarce evening light poured in through the collapsed ceiling, I saw a crooked shape far behind. The other automaton was recovering from the grievous injuries. Its mauled head bore a freshly sprouted crown of fiery horns, baleful eyes opened one by one, glowing like foxfire on a decaying tree. Fire slipped above Amphiprion's head, under his gauntlets. Soon my coat was smouldering, my heart throbbed in searing psychic pain. The deadly pyre of the Stormbringer, an old memory made me sick. Maintained by the same sorcery. Animated by the Iron Seer's malice.

For the first time in my life I breathed a sigh of relief when the brimstone stench of the ship portal came from the ruined annex. My eyes caught ungraceful movements in the twilight. Spectral fire died. Both automata stopped and recoiled. We gathered the scant strength still left as four deformed daemonhosts appeared from the shadows. Already from the frost-sparkling portal, we saw the hideous sailors rip the automata with their bare hands. A single blow cleft open an automaton's head. The dark spark of daemonic fire left the wraithbone phylactery. The lifeless husk fell apart as the vines of unflesh dissolved.

I flinched at a punch in the side. The captain stood behind me, the sour frown still on her face. She crossed her arms on her breastplate.

'What a loser you are, Inquisitor. But the result doesn't bother me. My part of the deal is done. It's all up to you now.'

'I have yet to warn the Conclave.' I put my hands on my hips and looked at Angel and Amphiprion for help. 'You know me as an honest person. Just wait a bit.'

'I've waited for a few centuries,' she roared. 'You want to run away, shonky bitch. He's going here. He knows I've betrayed him.'

'His worshipfulness misses me again.'

'Idiot. I haven't told you last time but now I'm free to wag my tongue. Imudon was kicked out of the shrine after he had failed at giving a worthy sacrifice to the gods. His word is nothing there from now on. The real master of the host will come to us.'

'We're enough to stand against any enemy,' said Amphiprion, puzzled by the encounter but too loyal to retreat.

'The shadows will leave nothing of you, stupid pup with a hole in your chest.' She showed him her middle finger. 'Ask Plodia Interpunctella, the famous null, how they broke her and made her cower before her captors.'

'You're a heretic to be purged by the servants of the Emperor,' Amphiprion went on despite our desperate signs.

'Come on. Try to kill me with your rusty stick. The scum inside me is eager to fondle you.'

Amphiprion swung his metal bar at the squealing laugh of the bound daemon. I stood between them. Amphiprion stepped back only when Angel interfered.

'Your foundling is a total asshole,' the captain sneered.

'An aspiring champion if compared to your mastery,' I snapped at her.

'If you don't shut up, I'll smash your smug mug. Haul ass to the bridge. I'll stay here for a minute. A last look at these runny skies.'

The daemonhost approached my friends without a sound. Angel and Amphiprion struggled to break free from their rotten hands, Sister whispered a few words of prayer and fainted. As the horrid sailor was dragging her limp body into the maw of the ship, I walked up to the captain.

'Tell them to keep their hands to themselves.'

'I could only have asked a single hour from the First Acolyte but had to swear I'd take you prisoners.' She shoved me so I bumped into the edge of the portal and fell on the ship deck. Uncle reached out to help me but another daemonhost twisted his arms behind his back.

When I ran up to the bridge, it was so veiled in dark only the contours of the navigator throne were barely highlighted by the red embers of daemonhost eyes. The whole crew had gathered around the platform holding Fluffster, Plodia and Corydoras in restraints at the throne dais. Four remaining daemonhosts took their places in the circle. Ten mutilated shapes, dessicated and decaying. I heard their torn souls wail inside. I had promised to one of them that I'll deliver them one day.

My glance fell on the Mirror Shard glimmering inside the case, lit by a pallid glow out of nowhere. I wished that had been a nightmare on a sultry summer night. Soon I'd wake up inside the owl. Even most seasoned Inquisitors would never dare to interact with the Neverborn. One needed a faith of unseen strength while I'd lost most of the mine in my past travels.

'I've never banished daemons,' I admitted sadly. 'This is a job fit for the Malleus. Lady Plodia, you're a blank. Do us all a favour.'

Her face was shaded but I heard her feeble sigh. 'I won't dare. I'm a petty sinner. An impostor. Fit for selling cinnamon rolls, not combating daemons.'

'Lord Paleatus,' I whispered.

'I won't dare,' Corydoras repeated his wife's words. 'A single mistake can render us crazed or even possessed. Let's put up with the fate and ask the Emperor to relieve us from torment soon.'

I stomped my boot. 'We mustn't get to the undervaults. They'll break us to seal our souls within the shrine. We have to do something.'

'What then?' Plodia sobbed. 'We're no Grey Knights, no Sisters of Silence.'

The captain's steel soles thudded on the metal floor. 'What are you waiting for? Get down to work.'

The radiance of the portal had almost died out, grey twilight barely seeping in through the supernatural gloom. I took a deep breath and clenched my fists. My heart pounding stronger than even in the previous fight, I made a step forward on limp legs. The daemonhosts released my crew but they couldn't move a finger as if stuck to the platform.

'Come on, Inquisitor! Is your Emperor so mighty as preachers describe Him?' the captain asked in a quiet voice, entering the circle of sailors.

A long time ago, when my mentor appointed me as his Interrogator, our sage had made me repeat the Litany of Banishment until I knew the words by heart. The familiar words already on my mind, I still couldn't utter a single sound. There's no losing today. I must use the most effective way even though that would curse me.

'Can you open the case, Lord Paleatus?' I leaned over to pick up the Mirror Shard.

'Don't you dare!' Fluffster bellowed like never before. 'Put it on the ground and don't even...'

'We must avoid experiments, Fluffster,' I said firmly. 'Saints banish daemons with the Emperor's word, but I'm no saint. People like me don't become saints.'

He reached out but the captain grabbed him by the paw. 'I dare you, shithead mouse! Let her do what she can do without your worthless whining!'

Corydoras undid the clasps with the indifference of a dead man. The cursed grimoire floated towards me, glimmering like quicksilver in the illusory unlight right from the warp. All daemonhosts screeched in a cacophonous choir, the deck shivered under my feet as if the vessel itself recoiled. My friends covered their faces in fear, only Angel and Amphiprion were towering over us immobile like guardian statues, one already familiar with the works of Chaos, the other too stoic to cower even facing the unknown foe.

'The mouse is right,' the captain whispered. Even this fearless woman trembled at the psychic touch of the weird artifact. 'Have it sealed back. Call out to your Emperor.'

'Everything is gonna be just perfect,' I pulled a reassuring smile. 'Relax and wait.'

'Please, Volentia, change your mind,' Angel and Sister pleaded from the dark. 'Say a prayer.'

Specular pages were flashing before my eyes under the growing aether wind. Sharp throbbing pain pierced my chest like in the gambling den. Whispering voices sounded in my head, first weak as rustling grass, then getting loud and losing harmony. Nails on the glass. Creaking doors no one had opened for centuries. I focused on the single thought about destroying the sorcerous bond that tied the captain to her ship. Words weaved into the whispers and screeches but theit meaning eluded me. The pages turned for the last time, and the grimoire stood still in the air.

First I could see but my garbled reflection but the more I stared into the trick mirror, the clearer was the changing pattern of cracks on the surface. They spread all over the pages, twisted, formed rows of weird symbols. A few familiar letters appeared among the countless lines, and my lips read the strange unwords.

A shriek made me flinch. The captain threw her head back, and gushes of tainted aether burst out of her mouth and eye sockets. The unwords left my memory. Darkness swallowed the bridge. I tried to catch the book, to recall at least a syllable of the arcane spell. They left nothing but a taste of metal in my mouth. Cold sweat rolled down my neck. I reeled backwards, struck by a bout of sickness.

Warm yellow light fell on my face. A flashlight in Fluffster's paw. He stood next to the portal, waving at my crew. The daemonhosts were slowly extending their limbs, as if bound by invisible shackles. Grimaces of malice distorted their rotten faces, their Neverborn parasites still in a shock but awakening to chase their prey.

A formless pile of rags lay in the shaded part of the platform. The place where the captain had been. The pile stirred, and I heard a feeble groan.

'You should have... listened to him... Moron...'

'Cap, you're alive.' I darted forward despite the overwhelming vertigo.

'Get outta here.' Her mangled shape went limp.

Angel picked her up. The daemonhosts swung their limbs at us in synchrony. Warp-fire poured out through the seams and spilled all over their bodies. The grimoire appeared again, glimmering and casting pale glints on the platform. It fell in my hands and stuck to my palm and wrist when I tried to shake it off. I cried a prayer out loud, and the daemonhosts recoiled. Sister's clear voice filled the shrunken bridge. Like beasts of the wild before a bonfire, the daemons stopped for a moment, unable to withstand the holy power of the litanies.

People are known to have lost their instincts, but by instinct alone we left the bridge behind with a few leaps. Before we could realize how screwed up we were, the portal closed with a loud clap. Another place, probably miles away from the previous exit. Wet snow mixed with cold rain was falling from the night skies. On the left a long charred fence separated the wasteland from unlit husks of destroyed factory buildings.

I took a lungful of damp air. The most squalid ruins of the real world were paradise gardens compared to the cursed ship I'd never see again.

'Everything's quiet,' Angel reported. I lit my own flashlight and finally saw the captain's real face.

She lay in his arms like a torn ragdoll, a sickly, corpse-like crone in the place of the sturdy wench I had known. The daemon was gone, revealing her true form of a goner from a sunless world. Her only able eye was an ashen leucoma stain, her body had turned into a sack of broken bones and split skin. Angel was holding her with all care so as not to cause her more pain.

The crushing tide of her suffering nearly knocked me out but she could harness her psychic powers incredibly quick for her dire condition. Her psyker-glance stared at me. I shook my head, feeling pity for the broken person who was no more an enemy.

'Moron.' Her wrinkled lips twitched. 'I'd smash your face if I could move my damn hands. You should have listened to the mouse, to your crew. Your stupidity left them all... in his hands.'


	5. IV

It was the middle of the night. The ruins around had drowned in the snowfall, everything a step away lost to sight. Without network or navigation, we hobbled on along the fence like blind beggars. Corydoras and Plodia were walking before me, heads down. When we stopped for a respite in a burnt hangar, they sat down in a corner shoulder to shoulder and closed their eyes without a single word.

'My lords,' I broke the silence at last as a vague feeling of peril was pestering me despite the emptiness of the place. 'You are the leaders among us. You have been in ventures like that for uncounted times.'

'Volentia, leave them alone for a while.' Fluffster touched my hand. 'The last straw breaks the camel's back. They know more than you. Unabridged news about the coming Black Crusade. They have too much to lose.'

Something around was going wrong, I could swear, but there wasn't any real source of trouble to be found. Illusory noises and moves a tired brain imagines to fill the void. Even the psyker-sight was blurred as if some obscure manipulator was transmitting a jamming signal. I tried to take a glimpse of the vicinity, but the image was constantly shifting, splitting into parts, buildings and fences were changing places and multiplying.

I breathed in and out and found a sedative pill in my pouch. Trying to calm down my heart that leapt and throbbed like mad, I made a few steps from one wall to another. My crew was sitting around a row of crates where the former shipmistress lay on Uncle's cloak, too weak to move. Sister had taken out a medicine package to put her on a drip, Uncle was picking up thin metal bars for splints.

'She's dying.' Sister's eyes filled with tears. 'She's had every bone broken. Every internal organ damaged.'

'She's done enough to screw us up,' Uncle grunted.

'Please don't say so,' Sister said. 'She has been brave enough to renounce the false gods.'

'Come on, read a fine dirge for me but when I'm dead at last,' the crone wheezed out.

'So what now, Cap?' I sat down on a crate. 'We're stuck in all this frozen rusty shit.'

She showed the rotten stumps of her teeth. 'What frigging Cap, girl? Do you see a damn ship here?'

'So tell us how to call you. What's your real name?'

'Scum like me didn't get names. Even after the ritual the shrine master talked to the daemon inside me, not me.'

Sister put her hand on the crone's scarred forehead. 'He has no power over you now. The Emperor's grace has rescued you from the abyss of sin.'

'I wish it had been so,' the crone said. 'If your dumb boss listened to what smart people said. She drove out the daemon with a worse kind of witchcraft. The sorcerous bonds stayed the same. They are his prisoners, chained to his damned galley. He sees me. He will send his shadows to take my soul back to the shrine once I die.'

The long speech exhausted her, and her head drooped to one side on her fractured neck. She should be dead by all laws of nature after her glamour had been gone but the remains of the evil spell kept her between life and death. Against the intentions of the dark priest, it gave us time to set her free for real. I admitted that the visit to her home shrine had shaken my faith but extreme situations make us less picky.

I got up and leaned down to the crone. 'Every Imperial citizen is dedicated to the Emperor and admitted to the Holy Ecclesiarchia at a young age. Laypeople are allowed to minister the rite in danger of death.'

She moved her lips, and dark blood started dripping from the corner of her mouth. 'Hurry up. He's coming.'

The sage had taught me the consecration prayer along with many other litanies but something stopped me again. That's for real believers. The rite might fail, or never work at all. I looked at Corydoras with hope.

'Sir, you're the eldest by rank among us. You've been true to Him unlike us pathetic Radicals.'

'Lady Inquisitor, I'm not to question your orders,' Amphiprion jumped in before Corydoras could open his eyes. 'But I doubt following superstition intended to comfort the weak will keep daemons at bay.'

I frowned wearily. 'Shut up, please. I have to combat doubts now, not let them grow.'

Corydoras sighed. He got up to his feet and adjusted Plodia's cloak that had slipped down from her shoulder. 'I haven't done that yet, Volentia. I wish there was an ordained priest among us.'

'The point is that we have to rely on ourselves,' I said. 'If the warpseer survives the trip outta here, we'll find a priest to confirm the rite.'

Corydoras shook his head. As if trying to gather his strength, he buttoned the collar of his cloak slowly, took off his hat and smoothed his hair. Sister handed him a bottle of holy water from her belt bag. When Corydoras walked up to the crone's improvised bed, we stood in a half-circle, our hands folded in the sacred sign. Even Amphiprion, obedient beyond his indoctrination, followed Angel's example and crossed his palms on his breastplate.

Corydoras put the bottle on the crate. 'The warpseer needs a name.'

Parents or sponsors often choose names of revered saints as examples of virtue, and I knew what name fitted here most. 'Lucia. Saint Lucia cared for her Sisters and protected innocents, and was loyal to the Emperor in the direst suffering. One if the saints I admired since my childhood. Let her become the warpseer's heavenly patron.' I touched the crone's shoulder so she woke up from her syncopal drowse. 'Do you want to be called Lucia?'

'Sticks and stones have broken my bones,' she hummed, 'why names should hurt me?'

'Get ready. We'll pray for you.'

Chilly wind broke in howling. I turned away from the entrance, repeating words of prayer again and again. Eerie shadow shapes flickered in the dark of unlit corners as the wind was blowing in wet snow. My heart leapt up so that I reeled backwards. My eyes fixed on Corydoras's gloved hands folded over the warpseer's head, I kept on whispering the same litany in hope it would suppress intrusive thoughts of trouble. Jabs of psychic pain stung my solar plexus at every heartbeat.

Holy words broke through the howling of the gale. Corydoras opened the bottle and sprinkled the blessed water over the crone's forehead. 'Lucia, do you renounce the Ruinous powers and all the sins in service to them?'

She tried to raise her head. 'I do.'

'Do you entrust yourself to the Emperor, fully and wholeheartedly, for now and forever?'

'I... do,' her feeble voice rustled.

When the rite was over, I flopped down to the crates. 'Count this as your second birth, Lucia.'

'The only birth, girl. The previous birth brought me to the realm of death and despair. If He now cares for me, He'll end my worthless life soon.'

'He is to decide when you leave this world,' said Sister. 'If He allows that, we'll take you to the Imperial worlds where you can live the rest of your life in peace and care. I'll write to Canoness Hyacintha of my own Hospitaller order.'

'There's little joy in living as this bloody sack of shattered bones,' Lucia grunted.

'Sisters Hospitaller are skilled medics.'

'Dummy. These wounds won't ever heal. The old warranty of keeping my oath to the shrine master.'

Her powerful aura, still marred by the shadow of centuries-long pain, burned so bright it rivalled even the trained mind of Corydoras. An exceptional ability that, by the sad irony of fate, had been turned against the Imperium instead of serving the humankind. She was too weak to get to Terra, let alone survive the soul binding, and even the kind-hearted Hospitallers would tolerate a psyker in their nursing home only by direct order of the Inquisition. But it was known that the exorcised who survived the ordeal were fortified against warp corruption and often able to sense smeared traces of taint in other humans or objects.

'Lucia, we've already been through a few ventures together,' I addressed her with a confident smile. 'You've lost your previous employment so you're now open to a new one. We're fun to work with. A bit tight on money from time to time, but Lord Platydoras will increase our wage when you join us.'

'Screw you, wench. Give me something to drink and let my old bones have a nap. For the first time in centuries.'

She grabbed Uncle's flask and gulped a mouthful of amasec. Booze still dripping down her scarred chin, she passed out after the first sip. Uncle gripped the flask before it slipped out of her mangled fingers.

'Give it a second thought, lassie. Do we really need this harridan in our owl? What trader agrees to take her on board?'

'As if they're eager to work with us now. She's exactly what even Malleus lords pay fortunes to find. Knows everything about our enemies. Nearly immune to daemons since today. Remember what nuisance is to run around searching for an astropath. To sniff strange things and get a psychic blow to the head. I'm a crappy psyker, unlike her.'

'Don't belittle yourself. You've just banished a foul monster out of her.'

'Something that really pisses me off, Uncle. I only did it because of the cursed book.' Fear struck me as a stab of an icy blade. Only now I recalled the grimoire that had stuck to my hand when we were fleeing from the daemonic ship.

Uncle gave me a strange look. 'What book?'

'The one brought by Lord Corydoras and Lady Plodia.'

Now both inquisitors were staring at me like I was mad. Another gust of wind filled the room with sparkling snow. My heart skipped a beat as if numbed by sudden chill, and it resonated with a ring of shattered glass inside my head. A flash of pallid silver glimmered through the haze of snowflakes melting on my eyelashes. The grimoire lay on my knees as if it had been there all along.

Before I could show it to the others, Amphiprion staggered. Blackened blood leaked down to the yellow ceramite through the dressing. Angel and Corydoras grabbed Amphiprion's arms from both sides and sat him down. Gut-wrenching warp stench reached my mind. Lucia stirred on her bed and uttered a groan of pain.

Corydoras concentrated to examine the injury with his psyker glance. 'Warp poison, activated by the touch of malign powers that are stalking us now. Volentia, do you see the shadows over there? Lurking in the corners, circling around the wounded like vultures.'

'The dark priest has sent out his ghastly minions to finish the sacrifice,' said Plodia, shivering with cold and fright, her lipstick almost gone as she was biting her lips in anxiety.

It was my turn to get surprised. I tried to look out again but the border between the warp and the realspace was thin and misty. Spots of darkness in the corners were deeper than before but it was hard to tell whether they had anything to do with the warp. A tiresome day's paranoia fed by continued musings on the shit we'd got stuck in.

'We have to leave for good,' Sister whispered.

'There's one who knows more about this crap.' I touched the warpseer's shoulder again. 'Hope you don't mind me waking you up, Lucia. Who's after us right now?'

'The daemon that decided to find other prey,' she grumbled with closed eyes. 'Or the shadows from the shrine.' A grimace distorted her face when she tried to peek into the warp. Her body spasmed and went limp, reddish foam dripping to the crates from the corners of her mouth.

Plodia squeezed her pauldrons trying to shield herself from the piercing wind. 'Something wrong. Utterly wrong.'

Uncle grabbed his rifle and aimed at the dark doorway. 'Quicker. Friggin quicker. They're almost here.'

Their eerie fear was weaving into the curtain of psychic mist that veiled the whole place. Battle-hardened veterans were about to start random fire while the sick had got catatonic, blood running from Lucia's mouth and Amphiprion's wound despite repeated injections. Only Fluffster was snoring in the corner. Machine-like placidity he had in common with the sleepy robotic race he had negotiated with. I gave him a nudge. Our voice of reason won't fail. He growled something but curled up tighter.

'Fluffster, open your eyes and say something wise as you always do. Shall we really flee in the middle of the night to the loving hands of the Iron Warriors?'

'Cannot say this is the worst idea.' Fluffster sat up and took his volkite gun.

I touched my breastplate where I kept the remaining shard-dagger for the rainy day. Would be stupid to waste it on a single shadow. Anyway, my enemies would send at least a pack of the foulsome spawn of the Chaos shrine

'It doesn't let me look further than the outer fence.' Corydoras breathed in and out trying to break the thickening haze. 'The room itself is pitch dark in warp-sight like the bridge of Lucia's ship.'

'I cannot see even that, sir.' A wave of fright overwhelmed my soul, and I recoiled to Plodia's null field whispering litanies. When the panic ceded, I took out the dataslate. False hope. The network systems had been brought down all over the forge.

'All forge worlds are built following the same pattern,' Fluffster said on seeing my efforts to open the maps. 'There should be another hangar across the landing strip. If we're lucky, we find a van to get to the closest port. I guess, a few miles away beyond the cargo storage area.'

'Everyone, open the connection menu on your slates and screens,' ordered Corydoras. 'If the traitors are nearby, at least one of us will be able to spot their own networks. Marines have ciphered channels but cultists are never that prudent.'

Fluffster crouched besides Amphiprion with working tools. In a few minutes the armour joints hummed, and the marine got up slowly. I recalled Raaf's empty suit programmed to move by itself to distract the heretics. Machine Spirits of ancient suits could keep on fighting even when the warrior was dead, until enemy fire destroyed the reactor, I'd heard from older Inquisitors.

A subtle voice reached my mind. I looked down to my knees as silvery reflections flickered on the floor at another wind gust. The book reminded me of its existence when it needed a living soul to sip on its dark lore. A tempting way to solve the problem without much risk, I thought suddenly. Fluffster grabbed my hand before it touched the pages. I jumped up to my feet, letting the grimoire slip to the floor.

Sister removed the drip, and Angel leaned over Lucia to pick up the unconscious warpseer. Fluffster and the inquisitor couple at the head of the group with heavy guns in hands, we stepped out into the gloom of whirling snow. Even our flashlights didn't let us see further than a step ahead.

I turned my head at a dazzling flash on the edge of my vision. Pallid silver glimmered in the doorway through the blizzard but everything dissolved when I made another step away. Let it stay behind on the abandoned world until a properly armed Inquisition fleet arrives to smite its deadly essence.

Dark stains of frozen blood showed up through the fresh snow as our flashlight beams slipped along the landing. Corpses of cultists lay here and there but we saw no dead Mechanicus warriors around. A regular brawl to seize the finest loot. A few meters to the left, between two broken lamps, stood the prize no one of them had won. A sturdy armoured ammo van still bearing the forge world emblem.

The unlucky winner had managed to open the van door but death had caught him before he could leave the ruins. His rusty armour had turned white with frost but obnoxious colours of Chaos sigils still glared through the layer of snow in the lamplight. Fluffster threw out the corpse, shook reddened snow off the seat and tapped a few codes on the control screen.

'Sirs and madams, to the van, please.' He typed in another combination, and the back door slid open with a loud beep. 'Take your places in the guard compartment at the loopholes. We're a bit low on fuel but enough to get to the port if we choose a short route.'

The engine started, two dim lamps lit up on the ceiling. The van jerked forward. I staggered and nearly knocked Uncle down. The small compartment had place for six guards only, so we sent Angel to the cargo area. Amphiprion's battered suit hobbled after him obediently, carrying its catatonic master.

Uncle frowned at the bloody trail on the floor and took off his own cloak with drying bloodstains. 'Let's make a bed for the old biddy again. So she has a fine nap at least, before her buddies grab us.

'Life keeps on mocking me. Showing me how unfit for the job I am.' Plodia emptied her flask of booze with a few gulps and rubbed her eyes nervously trying to remove mascara stains. Her fingers touched the inhibitor gorget but she didn't activate it.

Sister huddled in the back part at the head of Lucia's makeshift bed. She was still trembling even after Plodia had given her a shawl to cover her bare shoulders. Sobs almost drowned out words of prayer she was whispering through chattering teeth.

Guns in the loopholes, we sat clinging to the walls as the van was rushing through the blizzard. Heavy silence made me drowsy. The shaded compartment blurred, the engine noise was getting distant and quiet. A mere whisper. Sparks of pale flame danced before me. I swayed backwards and hit against the wall. My hat fell off to the floor. Rubbing my eyes, I leaned over to pick it up and cussed. The Mirror Shard was sparkling under the seat, reflecting livid unlight from the Immaterium. I heard its voice, a faint clink of glass breaking.

Corydoras jumped on his seat, his finger already on the trigger. 'Fluffster, how much further? They've caught up with us. The walls themselves are shifting. Shadows oozing in.'

'Have patience,' Fluffster grumbled. 'Blizzard or warp tricks, even roads are twisted here.'

I shrugged my shoulders watching their changing faces. Uncle couldn't stand it any longer. He bellowed a tirade of cusses and emptied his clip into the dark. The van shook as it ran over a ruined wall section. My heart throbbed madly, I gripped the back of my seat, floaty at their panic filling the air. A weird joke of the warp, they sensed something beyond my vision. Angel was quiet behind the wall, yet untouched by the malign power as well.

Corydoras and Plodia leapt up at once. His mighty psychic surge clashed with her null outbreak as she pulled the switch of her inhibitor. The sickening mix threw me off my seat. Five throats yelled as a choir of madmen. The van shook again at a violent impact and stopped. Before I could sit up, Plodia's bulky shape collapsed on me and Uncle.

Holding to a fresh bump on my head, I crawled out from under the pleats of her heavy cloak and pulled out my leg pinned under her pauldron. Corydoras helped his wife to get up to her feet.

'An especially strong sorcery.' He touched a bleeding graze on his cheek. 'Probably amplified by the rite we performed and the warpseer's continued bond with the daemonic entity.'

The door opened, and Fluffster came in, followed by twirling clouds of snow. 'Here we are. The Machine Spirit has gone nuts. Doesn't obey even arcane Martian codes. Good for us, the armoured cabin withstood the impact when we hit a wall.'

'The daemon will finish us all,' said Plodia.

'Lords of Change tend to… uhm… change things,' Corydoras stopped as if choosing better words. 'But the influence has surprising moments even for a Greater Daemon. How it interacted with a blank and…' He turned towards me. 'An unsanctioned psyker.'

'Your damn book tagged along with us,' I grunted. 'I remember leaving it in the hangar.'

'Volentia, you carried it with you though we all warned you,' Uncle interfered. 'We begged you to throw it away.'

'Well, I don't suffer from amnesia yet…' I started.

'Volentia, we don't blame you,' said Corydoras. 'But we all saw you took it out and put it under your seat.'

Honestly, I realised I couldn't tell for sure what had really happened there. The events between the fateful exorcism and the crash had more to do with a sticky nightmare. The feeling I was about to wake up didn't leave me.

'A scandal is just what we need.' Fluffster clapped his paws to draw our attention. 'First of all, we have to get out of this pathetic place.'

'There's a way,' answered Plodia. 'But I doubt anyone would like it.'


	6. V

She stopped and looked down to her boots, pulling at the clasp of her cloak. The pale glow from under my seat was growing sharper despite Plodia's active null field. I reached out, and the book floated out and landed on my outstretched palm. Like in the mansion, opened in the middle. Blank mirror sheets reflected a mess of twisted faces. Some were human, some belonged to the Aeldari or unknown races of xenos. Once I touched the page, I knew what to do.

'Let's use it for one last time,' I suggested. 'To overcome the biggest threat, tear out the clear pages, and the mirror shows you the way.' The words popped up in my head by themselves.

The book fell down to the floor at a slap of Fluffster's paw. He grabbed me by the collar and pinned me to the wall.

'We've already had enough,' he bellowed with anger I'd never witnessed in him before. 'If you knew an ounce of…' He paused, unwilling to give something out.

'You never share the details of your shady machinations. How am I supposed to know that?' I shook his loosened fingers off my neck and adjusted the scarf.

'Well,' we heard Plodia's doubtful voice. 'My idea is no less radical. But it's sometimes fine to have a buddy on the other side of the frontline. He's obsessed with nulls to shield himself from the witchery of his new homeworld and the intrigues of his sorcerer boss.' She finished the booze in her flask, and her sour face relaxed.

'There's a small complication.' I pulled a crooked smile. 'I stole the gull man's staff from him in your name. Melitara should have told you about her funny business talks.'

She frowned. 'Not the first time I screwed him. Where else he can find blanks who are rare even in times of peace? Ephestia's sisters-in-arms lurk all over the Imperium to get as many recruits as possible before real war breaks out.'

'As if the war we're waging against the traitors isn't real,' said Uncle.

'You dare to say this even after the trip to Iarmailt? The Panther's mighty pirate fleet is just a scout squad sent to pave the way for the army.'

Corydoras sniffed and clasped his hands on hearing the Black Legion captain's name. 'Plodia, it's totally useless to engage in empty rows. We shall discuss the details of our future operation.'

Plodia got up and raised her fist in a dramatic gesture. 'We have to act boldly. Enough whining and hiding. Be the man I admired back on Uebotia in my rogue trader years. Turn on the transmitter.'

'You're drunk.'Corydoras shook his head. 'We've got one of their bitter enemies in our van.'

'Nothing but his armour cries Imperial Fists,' she objected, feverish blush on her face. 'He won't need it anytime soon.'

Corydoras pondered for a few seconds. 'We'll lock him in the cargo part along with Lucia so her aura creates a psychic barrier or at least distracts the traitors. But you must be aware of the fact Limax won't let you go.'

'Look, the fearless agent of the Throne is scared not only by a pirate cocksman but even by a garbager nerd,' Plodia spat out with a bout of unnatural laughter. She tore Corydoras's flask off his belt and gulped another doze of amasec.

'You'll puke all over him.'

'Nerdy boys get stiff for mean drunken girls.'

Fluffster dropped his head into his paw. 'The war drama turns into a slapstick black comedy after a few shots of booze.'

'Your opinion, Fluffster?' Corydoras turned towards him.

'Worth a shot. Send out the signal. The thing won't let us go.'

Corydoras shrugged his shoulders and took a small transmitter out of his pouch and connected it to his dataslate. He held his finger on the button for a moment, still reluctant to get in touch with the enemy but then muttered a quick prayer and pressed it. The transmitter gave out a short beep, a dialogue window opened on the screen.

'Let me type in the message.' Plodia tugged him by the sleeve.

'You're drunk as a fish. I must do it myself in the most reasonable way.'

Corydoras covered the screen with the other hand and started tapping. A minute passed in absolute silence. Then the transmitter beeped again. 'Incoming message. Click to expand.' A single line. 'Ready to meet you, Lady Plodia. The coordinates of our disposition are in the attachment.'

Plodia snatched the slate from her husband and chuckled. 'I bet he was typing it all sweating and puffing.'

'They want to lure us to their camp and enslave us,' said Corydoras.

'The only thing that matters is the Lost Queen,' replied Fluffster. 'We've to get as close as possible.'

I looked at my crestfallen crew. 'I understand why Limax needs you or Lady Plodia or Lord Paleatus. But he'll have us all killed or sacrificed.'

'Don't want to dishearten you even more, but the Iron Seer is curious about your mark. As for Angel, Limax will try to enlist him to his dwindling company. Sister and Uncle will work as my assistants. I want to take a glimpse of the tower by all means.'

'Imudon will find out anyway.'

'Aspersum dislikes him and won't let him come near his citadel.'

Angel and Fluffster carried out piles of burned and mauled yellow ceramite and hid it in the rubble of destroyed walls. Fluffster put coded locks on both doors of the cargo area and drew protective sigils all over the surface.

'If they ask us, we use the hold to contain a powerful but highly unstable psyker for technical purposes.'

The engine was quiet for minutes already. Fluffster climbed into the cabin and leaned over the panel.

'The Spirit has calmed down but I'm not sure it lasts for long. The quicker, the better.'

He connected Corydoras's dataslate to the van navigation system. 'New route built. Press any key to start.' The visual modules had been damaged so all we could see on the screen was a thin green line on the dark surface.

'About twenty kilometres. Get ready.' Fluffster slammed the door shut.

I flopped down to my seat and reached out to the cargo area. Foul stench of warp-rot that didn't go despite Sister's blessed potions. Grief and suffering of Lucia's fiery soul.

'Girl,' her voice whispered in my head, 'what the hell?'

'Are you better now?'

A distant whisper, though she was only a meter away. 'It hurts. My pain is nothing against theirs. Do you hear them cry in the cold depths? I call out but they can't hear.'

'Forgive my haste, Lucia,' I sent back. 'There are people who can destroy the ship. If we survive the coming negotiations, Lord Corydoras will contact Lady Cichlasoma and her daemon-hunters.'

She chuckled bitterly. 'He, who but He can...'

The link broke. Tired of the eerie panic that still filled the van, I pressed my forehead against the loophole staring at the darkness of abandoned factories. The day was already breaking, and husks of storages and workshops towered black against the charcoal-grey sky. A thick layer of snow had buried all sparks of battle fires but smoke was still rising here and there from breaches left by enemy shells.

Slowing down to save the last drops of fuel, we drove uphill past an endless chain of deserted hangars. Soon it gave way to a quarry going miles down in cyclopean steps connected with cables and elevators. The highway was but a thin strip of rock over the abyss.

The place was alive with the roar of engines. Three orbital cargo transports painted with hazard stripes rose from the quarry as we passed by, carrying giant nets full of sparkling anthracite shards. The psychic field of blackstone fell over the van, and I flinched at a bout of violent vertigo. A smaller vehicle, probably a Land Speeder, was hovering over our roof to cut us down if we acted out.

Dazzling yellow lamplight flooded the compartment as we passed through under a charred metal arch. The van climbed up to a clifftop plateau and stopped between two rows of landing lights.

'On the spot,' I heard Fluffster's voice through the vox. 'Three inquisitors and one space marine, join me but leave your weapons on your seats. No freaking out, no crying out about heresy.'

Uncle gripped the butt of his gun. 'Hey, rodent. It's a fishy deal indeed if you want to keep me and Sister out.'

'That's why, you old paranoid,' grumbled Fluffster. 'Come on, fellows, they've already arrived.'

I put my hand on my breastplate. The dagger will stay in its place. The last word in any talk. By the Emperor's grace, I'll do my best to keep it till my next meeting with Imudon. Even after he'd become a runaway, he won't abandon his goal to win back the favour of his gods.

Fierce clifftop gale blew air out of my lungs. Holding to Angel's gauntlet, I made a few careful steps towards a battered Thunderhawk waiting on the other end of the landing site. The door with the peeled death mask of the Fourth slid up. I stood upright behind the senior inquisitors' backs, ignoring the Land Speeder gliding to and fro above our heads.

Two legionnaires with sergeant badges stepped out of the shaded maw of the Thunderhawk. Captain of a second-rate company, Limax couldn't afford Terminator armour or even decorated bodyguards. He followed his heralds, hands clasped on his belly, huffing through his helmet speakers.

Then a familiar aura slipped across the plateau, brushed against mine like a murmuring breeze. The Iron Seer emerged last, without haste or anxiety. Panic rushed through my mind at the sight of his vulture visage, the memory of his spectral fire harrowing my soul. Yet his own soul was no flame to the touch, but deep slumbering water. Light chill, a smell of decay.

Limax stomped his way to the middle of the landing. His dark cloak fluttered in the wind, giving his gawky shape a bit of epic air. When he stopped in a circle of lamplight, Plodia threw back her hood and moved towards him. Her face was a mask of fever with booze blush and freshly painted lips. She extended her hand in a dramatic greeting.

'I admire your majestic stature, Lord Limax!' her drunken clamour echoed around. 'Words cannot describe how delighted I am to see you again. Truly the bonds of our long cooperation have to be cherished.'

Corydoras puffed looking down. I pulled up my scarf to hide a nervous smile but the Iron Seer chuckled inside my head.

Limax turned his head left and right, then nodded. 'My lady. Lord Aspersum agreed. There's a matter to clear out.' He stopped and tapped on the chin of his helmet but flinched and straightened his back under the stare of his bodyguards. 'Later, on the ship. You all have to follow our rules and orders.'

'Hope my lords and ladies will pardon our valiant chieftain who is as brave as the War God on the battlefield but is intimidated by beauty that lays waste to armies and citadels,' the Iron Seer giggled from behind Limax's back. 'We accept your surrender despite the fact you came to the planet to destroy our best weapon. Since you stepped on the landing site, you belong to the legion, so take that with due humility. The pariah is Limax's share but the rest are claimed by Lord Aspersum.'

'Man, we talked to Lord Limax only,' I said.

'Miss Inquisitor, you should be glad that I hold no grudge against you even after the sorrowful incident with the titan. I rarely take weak psykers for apprentices but you have some value. Your friends wrote about the malign spirit stalking you, and Limax wouldn't be able to bind it without my assistance.'

Fluffster's tone was surprisingly calm. 'I'm ready to arrive to Lord Aspersum's disposition with my tools and assistants. He's Terran and respects the lore of the Terrawatt clan.'

'I'm just a warlock and don't mess with tinkering. My duty is to have a glimpse of the sorcery that was powerful enough to make you bend the knee. And the last thing before we leave this place of despair and desolation.' He pointed at Angel. 'The space marine is enlisted to Lord Aspersum's company.'

Limax turned to him puffing. 'Sir, my company was halved during this campaign.'

Angel's wrath set his mind ablaze, so I tugged him by the cloak and showed him my clenched fist.

'That's open rebellion, Warsmith Limax,' the Iron Seer said, not bothering to change his honeyed voice. 'You pay little respect to Lord Aspersum who cares for you as a second father. You may challenge him to a duel for the company leadership on Medrengard.'

'I don't mean…' Limax muttered. 'I'm sorry, sir.'

'Fine. You may take the pariah's husband for your service. He's the same kind of a nerd as you.' The Iron Seer headed back to the Thunderhawk and waved his gauntlet at us. 'Return to your van. It will be parked on our vehicle deck. You're not allowed to exit the deck until we land on Medrengard. At any intention of breaking our pact you'll be put in chains and branded.'

Only when the Thunderhawk took off, Corydoras spoke for the first time. 'Slavery. The price of our lives.'

'And more, much more,' Fluffster answered. 'Be careful so the Seer doesn't learn more than he needs to.'

'I'd rather die for the Emperor than stand under their traitor banners,' Angel bellowed, a krak grenade already in his hand.

'Don't do anything without asking me first.' Fluffster was the only one among us to be left undisturbed by the sad outcome.

'They're dragging us to their accursed place,' said Corydoras.

'Just to repair the Queen and set off to use it somewhere in the Cadian sector.'

'You're talking about it as if we're on a vacation promenade. They work their slaves to death without mercy.'

'Lord Aspersum is aware about the value of my knowledge and skills. One advice for you concerning the warlord,' Fluffster chuckled and winked at Corydoras, 'take care so your wife doesn't dump you for him.'

Plodia gave out a laugh and reached for Sister's medical bag to grab a vial of silent spirit. 'If my dear husband grows bigger balls, I'll consider staying with him despite all manly charm of the Iron Lord.'

Corydoras shrugged his shoulders. 'Honey, brains are more important than balls. Remember Aphedron who called himself the Magnificent. He wouldn't have perished along with Iarmailt if he was smarter.'

Plodia slapped him on the shoulder and left a bright lipstick stain on his cheek. 'Boring. Better make a stern face like on the day you entered the Morning Glory with your retinue.'

I got up to cheer up my own team. They huddled together as if to hide from the world gone crazy. Tears were running down Sister's cheeks, Uncle's breath reeked of booze. Angel was staring at the grenade he was still holding.

'Look at the bright side of things,' I said. 'At least the fear is gone.'

'But the book is still here.' Angel pointed somewhere behind my back.

Pallid unlight was oozing from under my seat. I spat on the floor and took Uncle's flask to swallow the rest.

The van rolled out of the hold and stopped a hundred meters away. There was silence outside. White lamplight fell in stripes through the loopholes. We felt a light jolt when the great barge left realspace, then the vehicle deck got quiet again.

Hours passed after hours. Two times a standard day a crude automaton servitor brought us another portion of artificial nutrients. Staying in Plodia's null field, Fluffster opened the cargo area, and Sister squeezed nutrient paste into the mouths of our oblivious comrades. I took out the knitting bag but unceasing psychic buzz disrupted my concentration, and the work went slower than I wished.

Fifteen meals later, the deck shivered again. We gathered in the van, and cargo automata loaded the van into the Thunderhawk. As the vehicle was moving down through the athmosphere, aether winds blew in through the armoured walls. A stench of tainted metal and sorrow. Distortion of normal order, though far from the despair of the shrine world.

The Thunderhawk rattled at the hard landing. The van door opened by itself, and hot polluted air filled the compartment. I nodded at my crew crouched in the corners, grabbed the pouch and went out first.

A stripe of pale, sickly light fell on the rusty floor through the half-closed door. Cargo automata stood on guard on both sides of the exit, deactivated till the next campaign. The van cabin was empty. Fluffster had left for his obscure plans without visiting us. I decided not to wait for the others.

The sky above was bleak the colour of lightest ash grey like in mid-autumn when the sun is too weak to break through the clouds but long rains are yet to start. The Thunderhawk stood on the edge of a landing site paved with dark slate. Holding to a forged fence, I walked out of the vehicle's shadow but a deeper shade fell over me. The local sun, blacker than shards of null blackstone, cast shadows instead of light. Black as a bottomless pit, it made the soul freeze even in the heat of countless furnaces coming from beneath.

'Is the air of this world so bitter for its master's grief, or did the Lord of Iron choose the dismal place so that it fit his bitterness?' the Iron Seer's psychic whisper rustled in my head.

I leaned on the fence and looked down at the colossal anthill unfurling miles below at the bottom of our cliff. Ridges of slag mountains and moats of quarries separated the forge-megapolis from lifeless wastelands on the horizon. Smokes of hive factories rose to the pallid sky, each dome big enough to cover a whole city. Cargo transports scurried through the intricate network of suspended roads built all over the place. Mine-ridden crags rose as giant stairs, feverish life boiling in the deep-hidden heart of the mountain ridge. To the right and to the left, other clifftop citadels towered over the vast forge that surpassed every Imperial factory I'd ever seen.

The Iron Seer was standing before the main exit of the Thunderhawk in a pretentious pose of a countryside poet, his arms crossed on his chest. A few steps away, clad in his battered massive suit, Aspersum was tapping on his armour screen with his usual enthusiasm. On seeing me, he slapped on the screen and beckoned.

'Where the hell are your hangers-on? I agreed to accept your surrender only because I have job for you.'

'They'll be here in a minute, sir,' I said with a friendly smile.

'For how long is the damn milksop gonna dilly-dally?' Aspersum yelled turning to the vehicle. I winced, and he burst out laughing. 'Don't pretend you're scared, you saucy slut. You've caused us a deal of pain in the ass when you posed as a worker and blew up my seer's favourite daemon engine. I say, he was so impressed that he put the blame on you when he trashed my possessed titan. Funny, isn't he? That's why I don't let him even touch new tech.'

His booming snicker echoed in the cliffs. When I walked up to him, he pulled my scarf down to my chin and patted my cheek with his metal hand. I winked back at him with all my remaining courage.

'Ready to enter upon my duties, sir!' Limax blurted out from behind my back. His legionnaires pointed their bolters at my crew standing besides. Plodia greeted Aspersum with a smug grimace, Corydoras lowered his head.

'That's the famous Interpunctella who showed her pot belly to the Panther's whole fleet!' Aspersum shouted. 'No, Limax, take this painted whale and her hubby for yourself. The half-naked nun looks sweeter. I bet she forgets her crush on the Carrion Lord once we get to know each other.'

'Sir, she's the cricetid's assistant. Along with the old gunman.'

'For the better. Have both escorted to my workshop. The Queen is already there. Bugger off and find any of the apothecaries to examine the red guy. Their gene-seed is kinda cranky but he looks healthy enough.'

Limax headed to a tall gate carved in the rock wall but stopped on the way. 'What about the van with the psyker?'

'To a secure cell between my quarters and the seer's tower.' Aspersum gave me a nudge. 'Get in to the fort. I've given Crinitus a room for you all. I've heard much about him. He uses his hands for more than wanking, though he's but a shitty rodent to most. Children of Old Earth have respect for one another.'

I just kept on nodding. When the gate slid up and Limax vanished in the dark doorway, I joined my crew. Together we entered a cargo elevator and pressed to the oil-stained walls staring down the bolter barrels. Limax left a dozen floors down along with most legionnaires and both inquisitors, and we stayed with two of Aspersum's men in newer and sturdier armour. The elevator was descending deep into the citadel's maw for a damn eternity, then the doors clanged open. A narrow corridor lay ahead, steaming hot with the distant heat of the forge. Security screens and auspexes flickered with many colours on the metal side columns wrapped in bundles of heavy cables. One of our guards clicked on the minimap of the closest screen and traced a route to a room marked with a red point.

We continued hobbling along endless rows of similar metal doors. Though buzzing with ceaseless work, the citadel looked empty on the inside. Once in a while, a guard automaton or a cargo drone came in sight, but we hadn't met a single human in the corridors. A world of iron where machines were more at home than men. Finally, the first guard stopped before the door and held his gauntlet over the lock. The door creaked open. The second guard gave me a shove with his bolter.

'Get in with the nun and the old guy. Your van is already there. There's a direct elevator to the forge. You're forbidden to talk to other serfs and get out of the main keep without a direct order from Lord Aspersum.'

Angel hurtled towards the entrance but both legionnaires grabbed his arms and twisted them behind his back. He uttered a yowl of despair when one guard tore off his helmet and the other put the bolter to his temple.

'To the Apothecarion, you lousy lapdog of the False Emperor!' The first guard pulled Angel to the end of the corridor. 'Pray your god so the air of Medrengard doesn't make you go nuts before you're conscripted.'

The door slid shut, and the outside voices died out. The modest room of plastic and metal was clean for a daemon world. Inset capsules with neat narrow beds, a table and a tall nightstand, a shower cabin behind a bulkhead. White lamplight and a sharp smell of disinfection chemicals kinda contradicted Uncle's and Sister's idea of a sweet home but it was just what I needed for working conditions. Even a deal of luxury, if we mean forge worlds.

There was a tall door with a sensor screen in the back wall. I put my hand on the screen, and the scratched doorleaves slid aside without a sound.

'Fluffster should be down there,' I said to my friends. 'Don't panic while I'm away. It seems our troubles are over for today.'

'You're leaving.' Sister rubbed her wet eyes. 'They might come for us anytime. Like they took Angel away.'

'We cannot free him without Fluffster's help.'

'I'm afraid Fluffster is a heretic or at least a renegade himself.' Tears were already rolling down her face. 'He talks first to xenos, then to open traitors.'

This echoed my own suspicions but I tried my best so as not to give them out. 'Everything will be just fine. Read a prayer for everyone. I'll be back soon.'

The elevator took me dozens of floors down into the deep maw of the rock citadel. The lower levels were carved into a solid of dark lava-like rock with scarlet veins of eye-splitting brightness. Choking heat of furnace fire enveloped me as I headed to a massive gate ahead. Most of its surface was covered with auspexes and protective sigils, but warp unrest seeped out despite the arcane wards, so intense that smoky tendrils of aether were visible to the eye.

I knocked on the gate. Nothing happened. I could hear a distant rumble of working engines from within but no one bothered to let me in. Instead of going back to the elevator, I crossed the platform where a few other door sensors were flickering red and green. There must be a way to find Fluffster. I tried the first sensor, and the door opened. The elevator moved a few floors up and stopped.

The first what I saw was a heavy bolter aimed at me. A guard automaton blocked the way out. Behind its angular frame I saw a row of living cell doors like on our floor.

'Lord Aspersum allowed us to move within the keep.' Quite a liberal interpretation of the guard's words but could work for the automaton.

The automaton didn't move its crude limbs. It put one foot into the elevator cabin so I couldn't leave. A captive going captured again. I leaned on the wall, so pooped out by the messy day I didn't care anymore.

A quarter of an hour passed in fruitless expectation. The vox and the dataslate didn't even react to the touch. I recalled the cursed book, almost sure it would glimmer from under my feet, but it failed my hopes. Slumber was overcoming me after a sleepless night, so I sat down in the corner, turned away from the frozen automaton and closed my eyes.

A yell of terror made me leap up to my feet. Aspersum's booming laughter shook the whole floor. A small human shape darted out of the shaded passage, slipped under the automaton's hand and collapsed to the floor. Shocked, I recognized Sister. Fresh reddish bruises on her arms, she was clutching the torn collar of her robe. I put my arm around her shivering shoulders.

'He's just a shitty traitor,' I whispered into her ear. 'Don't fear.'

She didn't answer, her face swollen with running tears. Heavy steps thudded on the metal floor. Closer and closer. I stood upright, looking at the approaching hulky silhouette over the automaton's bolter.

'Sir, we were meant to work in the forge along with Lord Crinitus,' I said in my most confident tone.

Aspersum pushed the automaton aside. He had changed to a greasy working overall and a carapace breastplate, peculiar gadgets and working tools stuffed in dozens of pockets. He leaned over me, and a reek of machine oil and biofuel hit my nose.

'Your time to work will come, you brazen hussy,' he said with an almost affectionate grin. 'You're braver than this stupid holy fowl. By all gods of the bloody Eye, I've just asked whether nuns wear anything under their rags.'

'Their rules kinda disapprove of lecherous men,' I hummed. 'You're expected to have a liking for toasters.'

He snickered back. 'Local wenches of the Mechanicus are all damn walking toasters. Certainly not my type. They say there are tech-priestesses who worship the Prince of Pleasures but the rusty hole of our daddy's nerd den doesn't tempt them.'

I reached out to touch the sensor. 'Well, I'm going back to Lord Crinitus, sir.'

'Crinitus has locked himself with the Queen and doesn't need your worthless presence. Let the dumb nun go back to your room and come to the strategium. The warlock wants to have a peek at your soul. If that doesn't seem promising enough, you'll have an honour to see your brainwashed little bro admitted to the company.'

He pulled me out by the shoulder and slapped on the screen. The door closed, and Sister's sobs got silent. Voices came from the other passage. Lamps lit up at their steps, and my heart sank. Led by an Apothecary in once-white armour, two legionnaires were dragging writhing Angel. They threw him, gagged and shackled, to his knees before Aspersum.

The Apothecary lifted Angel's smashed face by the chin. 'Healthier than I thought before. The Second Company, with relatively stable gene-seed. Will do just fine.'


	7. VI

Aspersum stared into Angel's wrath-reddened eyes. 'Not impressed, boy. You're made of weak flesh while I'm made of iron.'

The Apothecary removed the gag, and Angel spat blood on the corroded floor. 'Take off my chains, despicable traitor,' he wheezed out. 'I'll deliver the Emperor's justice to you.'

'Are you a soldier or a servitor?' Aspersum pursed his scarred lips. 'I've got a little gift for you, boy. But only if you stop being a brat. Something your Chapter Master will never bestow upon you. An ancient suit of Terminator armour. Forged in my family's workshops on Earth.'

'I don't need any of your impure gifts, filthy betrayer!' Angel bellowed tugging at the shackles that bound his wrists. 'Take off my chains, and you'll see the avenging rage of the sons of Sanguinius.'

'Better than being son to a whiny wanker but still second-rate. Guys, take him to the strategium. Show me your bravery in front of your fair lady from the Inquisition if you dare, milksop!'

Angel recoiled at another burst of Aspersum's laughter. Hands in pockets, I paced in the rear of the procession. The dagger. A chance to save Angel from death. If only I had time to finish myself after slaying Aspersum.

Massive doors in the end of the passage opened by themselves before Lord Aspersum. His strategium was a vast hall of polished steel and dark granite, lit with white lamps set in geometric patterns into the ceiling tiles. Aspersum passed by a large hologram projector table with a few high chairs and pointed at a niche hidden from view with a row of angular columns.

It was a big private room decorated with ceiling-high stalls of combat trophies. Probably Aspersum chose favourite items from his collection to adorn his modest campaign tent. Gathered all over the galaxy, from Marine helmets of nearly all Chapters and known warbands to weird xeno weapons. When Aspersum noticed that I had stopped to examine the trophies, he stuck his chin out and gave Angel a look of utter contempt.

'Unlock the shackles,' he ordered. 'Let the whelp at least try.'

The chains tinkled against the floor. Both guards and the Apothecary stepped back to a table covered with black cloth. Rubbing his wrists, Angel glowered at his foe who leaned on the wall, arms crossed on his chest.

'I'm a noble man,' said Aspersum. 'Strike first.'

Angel was panting, his face red and distorted with a grimace of rage and despair. 'We're both unarmed, traitor. So I'll rip out your throat.'

He gave out a fierce yell and leapt at Aspersum. The following combat was a whirl of lightning-fast moves. Aspersum parried and counterattacked. Before I breathed out, his metal fist slammed into Angel's face. Blood and teeth splinters splattered on the floor. Punches and kicks came down like hail. Aspersum grabbed the Blood Angel by the throat and hurled him at the closest column. Blood trickled in vivid red down the dark stone.

'I've fixed up your head, haven't I?' Unharmed by his opponent, Aspersum adjusted his overall. 'Wash your mug and go try on your new suit.'

Angel's smashed lips barely moved. 'May the Emperor's wrath fall upon you after I die'. He coughed and spat out a broken fang.

'Shitty whelp.' A kick of Aspersum's boot threw Angel to the wall like a rag doll.

I knelt down at Angel's bloodied body and hugged him by the neck. 'Kill me first, sir.'

Aspersum just grinned. 'Only fools have pity for losers, silly slut.'

'He's my brother.'

'He's more a brother to me than to any wimpy mortal. I'm not gonna croak the boy. A few good blows to heal his retarded brains.' He waved the guards over. 'Take him down and fix him in the power plant machinery. He'll find out serving in the company is better than feeding battery daemons.'

When the Apothecarion crew left, I leaned on the wall trying to look relaxed, my fingers already on the dagger hilt. As if nothing had happened, Aspersum stepped over the pool of congealing blood and sprawled on a big chair at the covered table.

'Scared, hussy?' He beckoned. 'I talk to wee babes in a different way. They get iron without and iron within when in my company. Pour me a mug of fuel and come over here.'

He clapped his hands, and a small niche opened in the closest wall right under the bright bloodstain left by Angel's head. Inside, there was a small canister, a jar of blue liquid and a steel mug with the company badge engraved on its side.

'Three quarters of fuel and a dash of antifreeze,' said Aspersum when I removed the canister lid. 'We Space Marines are superior to you mortals even in that. A shot of this unholy mixture would send your legendary Sly Marbo to the grave.'

Holding my breath, I handed the mug of reeking drink to Aspersum. He gulped it and pulled me closer by the arm.

'Good hussy. Behave well, and I'll do no harm to you. Take off your carapace. You won't need to fight while you're in my quarters.'

'Sir, you said there'd be psyker stuff,' I decided to change the topic. But when I moved my arm to slip out of his grip, he squeezed it so hard that I hissed.

'I don't like cowards and prudes like your stupid nun. You're in your twenties, stop putting on an act.'

'Space Marines are His Angels, they said. Warrior monks, they said.'

'We had been no monks before the Big Daddy of Ultramar turned the legions to toddler nurseries!' Aspersum roared. 'I'm a soldier. I've always been a soldier since I was born in a gun-tribe of Auro. I had gathered trophies, worked in the weapon-forge and bedded wenches until He took the best of our young champions to fight for Him among the stars. But His wimp of a son, the nerdy boy who would have been a shithouse cleaner in the lowest tribe of Sek-Amrak, thought we weren't good enough. He ordered to kill every tenth among us. To pose as a harsh leader. To replace us with Olympian slugs like Limax.' He showed his metal teeth in a fierce grin. 'Pour me another mug. Quicker, or you'll get a black eye.'

His sudden change of mind gave me chills. I hurried to refill the mug, but another warp-presence made me trip. By some miracle, I didn't spill the drink though Aspersum already swung at me. Soundless as a shadow, the Iron Seer slipped between the columns, his cloak fluttering in the aether wind. He waited in the shadow of a column until Aspersum finished his drink, then greeted his boss with a light bow of his masked head. He'd taken off his power armour, donning flowy shield-robes of grey and gold brocade, interwoven blue threads forming occult runic inscriptions on the chest and hems. His gloved hand that looked like a crooked bird feet without a gauntlet, touched my eyes and cheeks.

'Little sweet swindler,' he crooned. 'If I knew on Auriglobus what do you hide under your pretended faith, I'd have chosen you over the ungrateful astropath-to-be. I'd have burnt out your eyes and ears, broken you and reforged you. I'd have made you plunge deep into the Sea of Souls as your wondrous mark opens the way for the most sublime sorcery.'

'What mark is he talking about, hussy?' Aspersum nudged me in the side.

'Dark Apostle Imudon wanted to sacrifice me to your gods but the honourable inquisitor couple banished the daemon who was about to occupy my body.'

Aspersum frowned at his counsellor. 'I won't let this shithead Imudon anywhere near my citadel, seer.'

'He has only channeled a higher being's power, my lord. We'll take a quest to find that being and win more glorious victories. Arcane books of the Aeldari describe horrible wonders of unknown nature that have always fascinated me. The Lost Queen is one of these. The mark is a subtle clue to discover more.'

'Do your seeing job then.'

'I'll start observing the girl's mind and give her first simple challenges. She'll contact the Queen during the trip, and upon the return I'll open the eyes of her soul and wed it to the warp.'

Aspersum nodded with approval. 'All is good if it makes me stronger. The next Black Crusade is right ahead. I'll carve out a fine piece of the former Imperium for my own kingdom so our daddy can bugger off.'

'He's aware of what's going on in his realm, my lord. It would be wise…' started the Iron Seer.

Aspersum kicked the table leg. 'I don't care a damn about his bloody offended feelings. The whiner won't lift his ass from his throne to give me a thrashing.' He pressed a button on his carapace and waved at me. 'Hey, take off the table cover. Let's have fun after the victorious siege.'

I sighed and pulled the closest corner of the dusty cover, my other hand clasped on the dagger hilt. The cloth slipped down to the floor revealing a strategic simulation table like those favoured by Lords-Militant. Its surface modelled a half-destroyed fort with ruined hangars and storages and an improvised rampart of bomb-ridden rocks. Aspersum pointed at a big drawer in the table side. There were miniature models of marine troops and battle vehicles packed in transparent cases.

A wall panel slid aside when Aspersum pressed another button, and a vid-screen lit underneath. I saw a trashed living room only a bit larger than the ours. Boxes stood in towers that nearly touched the ceiling, small islands of greasy floor peeked through piles of scrap-metal, dried food leftovers and torn packages. Plodia was sitting on the very edge of an oil-stained couch with a handkerchief pressed to her nose. At a cogitator table to the left, Limax, dressed in shabby overalls, was talking to Corydoras, showing him scanned pages of Aeldari script on the screen.

'You've got buddies that fit you at last, milksop!' Aspersum bellowed.

Limax flinched and jumped on his seat. Plodia lowered the handkerchief and pouted her freshly painted lips into the camera. At Aspersum's mocking grimace she sprinkled more perfume on the handkerchief to cover her nose again.

'Aye, sir!' Limax stood upright and shook crumbs off his chest and knees.

'Come over with your model army to celebrate our victory. Maybe the nerdy warlock and the pudgy blank will help you to defend in a less pathetic way.'

Watched by the drowsy Iron Seer, Aspersum opened one of the cases and placed a squad of siege terminators behind the row of ruins.

'Take the assault squads and the serfs, wench,' he ordered. 'You've probably exercised with combat simulation during your apprenticeship.'

'There was a cheap portable holographic table but my mentor sold it to buy booze and rent a room one day when a rival from the Ordo hacked his bank accounts.'

'This one is a relic of my youth. I cast and engraved the models by myself during my first years of service.' He lovingly patted a Warhound Titan and rubbed a stain of corrosion on its head. 'Time pities no one.'

Limax appeared between the columns, carrying a dirty cardboard box in both hands. Plodia and Corydoras helped him to arrange thumbed, poorly painted miniatures inside the fort.

'As always, you've got an advantage. Use it at least once,' said Aspersum. He leaned on his side of the table and activated the small screen in the middle that calculated power and damage.

The Iron Seer clapped his hands. 'I see your victory in the shadows of the warp, my lord.'

Inset lasers marked the range of the first attack. Fort cannons stood ready for the first volley when Aspersum sent forward most of his serfs and tactical marines. The titan, along with a few more war engines, remained hidden in the rocks for away from the cannon fire. Aspersum threw half of the serfs off the board after a number of volleys.

Limax scratched his chin and frowned. He took an assault sergeant miniature but put it back.

'Well, I wait for the next volley. Your thoughts, inquisitor?' He turned towards Corydoras who was tapping on the screen of his dataslate.

'We have a higher probability of success if we use aircraft under the cover of our cannons.'

'There are siege terminators and war engines anyway.'

'Mining teams.'

'You won't win with such a weak force, so you'd better meet the inevitable defeat in a tragic skirmish. Like a real man.' Plodia perched on the table corner, breathing out alcohol fumes.

'It's just the exact model of his own company. Let him learn to fight with a weaker army but use it to the max,' said Aspersum, moving forth an assault squad.

Plodia leaned over to the screen on Limax's side. 'The fortune is against you today, sir. Critical damage.'

Aspersum gave her a stink eye. 'I have more, you fat slut.'

'Sir, may I ask a question?' I looked at a small pile of 'killed' troops on the floor.

'Come on.'

'Your ranks are dwindling with every salvo. Why waste men under the walls while one can send the war engines to draw fire away, with the serfs as repair crews? Then airborne troops and the warlock focus on defeating the enemy commander.'

Aspersum burst out laughing. 'Look, an Imperial is preaching against cannon fodder!'

'I've always had too few acolytes to sacrifice them in a stupid way.'

'You're a weak small wench and fight as one,' he said with hubris common in most Space Marine warlords. 'Stubborn power crushes everything in its way. You'll always remain a petty swindler in the shadow of big generals.'

The Iron Seer giggled. 'Giant beasts often have weak eyesight, but counting their size, that's the problem of the others.'

Aspersum touched the warlock miniature. 'Peeping is your duty, seer. Do you see anything worth telling me?'

'Your victory, sir. On this mock battlefield as well as on the real ones that await us.'

Aspersum's troops perished wave after wave but his assault squads and siege terminators had nearly vanquished Limax's ranged support. Only then the war engines moved forth, led by the sorcery-driven titan. Limax blushed and went pale, scratched the back of his head and wiped sweat off his face. Corydoras kept on calculating attack and defense combinations under his wife's dramatic stare.

'Do the old prick, man.' Plodia drank a generous gulp from a flask she took out of her cloak pocket. 'I would promise you a kiss or even more if I wasn't taken by the Lord Inquisitor.'

Aspersum snickered and emptied the antifreeze jar. 'As if there's one who wants you apart from your sluggish warlock!'

'My lord, is it fair to speak so of my distant but still precious relative?' the Iron Seer crooned.

'Screw you both, damn Lunatics.'

Corydoras looked obviously puzzled but the sorcerer just shrugged his shoulders. 'The brotherhood ties shared by all scions of Mankind's ancient cradle and its vicinity. A special honour, to be born where the first of us…'

Aspersum slapped on the table. 'Watch over the screens instead of blabbering.'

Parts of fort walls lit red as heavy fire 'destroyed' them. Then Aspersum grabbed his warlord and sent him forward despite the attempts of Limax's gunships and assault marines to counterattack. The sorcerer clapped his hands again. The ruthless iron tide swiped off the scant remains of the fort defence. Two commanders finally clashed when Aspersum's warlord broke through the serfs and tactical marines.

'Critical hit, my lord.' The Iron Seer pointed at the screen. 'Absolute victory.'

Aspersum hurled the defeated commander at Limax. None of Limax's troops 'survived' the crushing assault. Red as a beetroot, the younger Warsmith got down to his knees to pick up the miniatures from the floor. Corydoras started helping but Plodia, dead drunk, lay back on the table and patted Aspersum's warlord on the helmet. Aspersum threw her off with a light nudge of his metal hand.

'Another lesson for you, hussy.' He grabbed me by the waist. 'Victory means smashing everyone who dares to stand against your army. And you shall deliver the decisive blow by yourself. For confidence and for glory. Pour another mug of fuel for the rightful winner.'

A notification lit up on his wrist screen. He scrolled through the message and cussed. 'Bugger off to your room, wench. You four, follow me to the forge.'

Only two standard days later Fluffster thought of me and called me down to the workshop. Worn by the psychic air of despair that filled our room, I thanked the Emperor out loud and took my carapace off the armour rack. Sister immediately raised her tear-swollen face from the couch pillow.

'Don't. Please.'

'I need to see Fluffster. Angel is still somewhere in the forge as well.'

'Uncle is ill. Stay with us.'

I nodded at her. 'Be brave. I have to find out more to act. Pray for us all.'

Already closing the door, I noticed the familiar glint of silver under a chair. The book left the van to tempt me with another easy solution of all this bullshit. I sighed and slammed the door shut. On the way down I stopped before the sealed door of the cell with the van. Fluffster visited it twice a day, as he'd written, but I felt obliged to pay attention to my newest friends-in-mishap.

'Lucia,' I sent to the warpseer.

'Girl,' her whisper reached me. 'A bad place, but better than the shrine. Say a prayer. He has found us. They're in pain, in the jail of the ship. Say a prayer for me and for them. And for the young fellow. I cannot wake him up.'

The gate of the forge opened before me, and scorching malodorous air burned my lungs. Lit by coloured warp-fire of daemon-fuelled furnaces, giant machine tool constructs walked the vast hall on metal spider legs, directed by teams of Dark Mechanicus tech-adepts. Some of them crafted or repaired familiar-looking armour or weaponry, but most gathered around giant fire pits where tainted metal was fused upon the writhing unflesh of bound daemons. Whispering litanies to the Emperor, I hurried forward where the specular mountain of the Lost Queen towered over the busy anthill, reflecting warp-light in shifting kaleidoscopic patterns.

Fluffster waved his paw from the mid-level platform of the cursed siege tower where he was watching over a group of psyker serfs who pressed small shards of blackstone to the surface in places shown by Corydoras. The mirror-smooth silver swallowed them with no trace.

Aspersum appeared from behind, wiping his buzz cut with his oil-black glove. 'Join the other witches, hussy. It goes quicker every day. Soon the Queen will blow up many a citadel in the Cadian sector.'

I saw Fluffster move away to the other side of the tower. The right moment. 'Sir, Lord Crinitus is no simple Magos. I bet you know more about his cricetid kind.'

'All I can say, he's older than he pretends to be. My family on my mother's side had old ties to the Terrawatt clan. Things forgotten by now. He handles the old machinery like he's long used to.'

'He has knowledge of the Necrons and their tech.'

'Not surprised. Come on inside.' He slapped me on the rear and pushed me towards the entrance to the lower level curtained with aether aurora of changing colours.

It was a mirror hall with peculiar wraithbone constructs centered around a pulsing heart of warp-flame. With a shiver down my spine I saw cages with bound captives hovering around the heart on strings of unlight. One of the cages descended to the floor when Aspersum walked up to the heart. Angel was there, chained spread-eagle to the wraithbone frame, emaciated as if he'd been starving for months.

'Came to your senses, milksop?' Aspersum shouted.

'Curse upon you, traitor,' Angel wheezed out, trying not to show pain.

'You Imperials all get lobotomized, don't you?'

I pursed my lips. 'If so, your Stormbringer would have stayed whole while I'd be attacking it shouting pious quotes.'

'I don't mean you, smug slut. Inquisitors are the only ones to have an ounce of common sense in the Imperium.'

The Iron Seer was standing on a spiral staircase over the heart that connected the hall to the upper levels. 'Glad to see you, sweetling. Time to learn something new.' His honeyed tone couldn't hide his hatred pouring into the aura of the tower.

I spent days after days working in the mirror halls with blackstone and runes from dawn till dusk until I nearly fell asleep with fatigue. The Iron Seer, prone to slackery as always, often left the forge for his own business but his enchanted collar and wristbands burned my soul like white-hot metal if I broke the mind-link with the tower for a mere second. Despite Fluffster's initial promises, Uncle and Sister didn't show up in the forge, and the sorcerer kept me away from the cricetid.

Three weeks had passed, and Aspersum finally announced the last day of the repairs. By then I was so pooped out I could barely sleep at night. Most of my dreams were senseless scraps of surreal warp images and daemon whispers that didn't bring rest. On the last night, the nightmares I hated and feared suddenly returned. Countless red lights glowed on the dark walls of the shrine, and packs of shadows slipped past me as I was walking towards the row of Chaos altars. Freezing wind was blowing from half-open wall gates, the hatch to the undervaults was a pitch-black pit waiting to swallow any careless visitor.

The Dark Apostle stood half-turned over the gaping hole, in the shadow of vault columns. As I stopped on the other side of the hatch, he looked down at me, and his red eyes glared as dying embers in soot. His unholy seals fluttered under another gust of wind when he raised his hand.

'You have taken my most loyal slave from me, Inquisitor. How are you going to repay the debt?'

I shook my head. 'Well, your worshipfulness, I was sure they had kicked you outta here.'

'This is the place where the offering must be made. Where the gods command you to arrive.'

'Lord Aspersum would object. He thinks you're a shithead so don't even try to steal his workers.'

'His opinion means nothing. There is a thing you should do to quench the wrath of the gods. The impious warsmiths have taken the Lost Queen and bound the warpseer's daemon to its hull. They hope to use it without due respect for the Great Powers of the Immaterium. Consecrated it to the gods. Leave a path for their blessed energies. Draw their mark on the mirror surface.'

A repulsive sigil of unnaturally twisted shape lit up in the air as my nemesis waved his gauntlet. The one that had become my career start and my curse. His mark left over my heart.

'Do it yourself if you need it.' For the first time in my dreams, I moved my numb hands with great effort and folded it in the sacred sign on my chest. The sigil melted. Imudon reached for me but the gloomy shrine view vanished at a distant call. I opened my eyes and sat up on my couch in the shaded room.

Fluffster was standing in the middle with his case of tools. 'Get up, Volentia. Let's spend the last few hours in the forge and start packing for another trip.'

'We have to do something to help Angel.' I knew I should avoid the slippery theme of nightmares.

'I'll try to persuade Aspersum today. He's got a good head on his shoulders.'

Headache ceded only at midday when I finally got rid of the psychic monitors and left the forge to spend the remaining time till departure on my own. We were allowed to move through the levels outside of the serf quarters but the repair work had been so intense I had seen Plodia and Corydoras for a couple of times only. I got to their room and knocked on the door but the place was empty. Limax had probably led them away to assist him in the campaign preparations.

Going back to my depressed crew didn't sound tempting. I pressed on the topmost button of the elevator panel. The ascent lasted for an eternity, longer than the usual way down to the nether furnaces. At last, the door opened. There were a few closed doors and one half-open. Outside air was blowing in from atop a corroded stairway in the doorway. Auspexes didn't react when I slipped outside and started climbing.

Pallid ashen sky unfurled above as I pushed the last door to the top of the tower. The black sun hung in the zenith, and threads of dark smog were rising towards its sinister disk from hundreds of rock forges. I gasped for air that seemed almost fresh after the hell of the workshop. Hot winds from beneath reeked of metal and tasted like blood.

Contemplating the dour landscape on the other side of the observation deck, the Iron Seer stood leaning on the fence like a crooked statue. He didn't even turn his vulture head but his voice sounded shrill inside my head. 'Good you've come so soon.'

'My workday is over, sir,' I reminded him coldly.

'The Great Work of magic never ends, apprentice.' He called me like that for the first time. 'You've seen a curious dream today. Something that confirmed one of my boldest ideas. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the sigil itself.'

'This is my private feud with the old preacher shithead.'

'You know so little.' He giggled under the mask, black sunlight pooling in dark bruises on lazuli and gold. 'I summoned you to show you a few wonders. Here, the border between real and irreal is so thin. Almost nonexistent. Look deeper. Into the pit of the sun. Into the beating heart of the mountains and boiling magma in their veins. Into the hidden palaces within and armouries without. Become one with the world of iron and take wing without fear.'

Vertigo struck me. I heard my own cry, then the place shivered and drifted down. Eerie forms woven from black unlight flickered around. A mile beneath, two bodies froze up on grey tiles. Two small stains of colour. White skies above, the colossal forge-megapolis underneath, circled by wastes lost in aether haze. Hundreds and thousands of soulfires. Screams of slaves and howls of daemons hit my ears. I gave out a cry and soared higher, lost in the cacophony of images and sounds.

'The first time is the hardest, sweetling,' the Iron Seer's screeching voice reached my mind. A twisted form of a giant vulture was hovering next to me, spreading its wings with blade-sharp feathers to bask in the black radiance. 'What a fancy little eaglet you are.'

I fluttered my own wings, struggling with aether gales pulling me away from the Iron Seer's warp projection.

'Fly on, follow me. That's the real sight. The real flight. You'll learn to change skins and shapes, to sneak unnoticed to human minds and warp-realms. It's worth giving up your eyes, your healthy legs and arms. The silly girl betrayed me on Auriglobus to have her mind shackled by the Anathema. Be wiser.'

He headed to the highest cliff almost touching the sun disk. Dragged on by his aura, I could see every tiny speck of ore in the rock solid, every room or workshop hidden in the caves. Sorrow, bitter sorrow oozing from the depths. A spark of warm living fire glistening in the very heart of the dark citadel. Different from daemon unlight that filled the numerous forges.

'What's this place?' I called out to my guide.

'Where I planned to lead you. My lord father's arcane Fortress of Hate where he's musing over the grieves of past and hopes of future. You have gifts for his lordship so bow down and offer your life and soul. Your ancient sage knows much of what he strives to obtain. Your warpseer had seen the greatest mysteries of Chaos. And you're one of the living hints to those mysteries.'

Chill pierced me despite the scorching heat of fumes. 'Back. I'm going back.'

'Little coward, you were braver in your previous ventures.' He giggled again and flapped his wings. Blade feathers of steel and gold clanged when the fortress stirred at his call. 'Do you hear me, lord father?'

Another voice answered, dull and hollow, an echo of metal resonating at a blow. 'I do.'

'Your loyal son has come to bend the knee at your throne, with gifts of great value.'

'Taint. Foul, black taint dragging behind you.'

The vulture shook his head. 'I've brought along a witch. One marked with sorcery ancient and mighty. Let her speak to you.'

I recoiled. Fire, living fire deep inside. Fire I couldn't take my eyes off.

'Speak or you won't leave the place alive!' the Iron Seer cried.

Haywired by the sorcerer's treachery, I tried to utter at least a single word. Thoughts eluded me, everything but the spark of fire blurred into spots of dirty grey.

'My lord!' I breathed out almost soundlessly. 'Pardon my silence as my soul is dazzled by your fire.'

'The fire of my Father. Even in the darkest of depths…

He sees me.

He sees you…'

With a yell of terror I rushed back to my body. Miles of abyss underneath my physical eyes. I froze, unable to move, but the Iron Seer's bony fingers pulled me down from the fence. He put me on the tiles and slapped me across the face. I bit my lip at the stinging pain, and he slapped me again.

'Brat. Do you realize what you've just done?'

I breathed out and flopped down to the floor at the belated shock. One of His sons had spoken to us. Distorted by the warp and his old treason, he was still an ancient wonder barely any mortal happened to see. But even millennia in the daemon realm hadn't quenched the spark of holy flame He had planted in His child's soul.

'Listen well,' the Iron Seer went on. 'You'll give your buddies out to me along with the book you're hiding, and we head to the Fortress of Hate where you undergo the rites.' He paused for a few moments, and I felt his eyes stare into mine from under the mask. 'Or I'll tell Lord Aspersum who's hidden in the van alongside the warpseer.'

'How did you find out?'

'I've known your little secret since the moment I saw your van. But I decided to keep the trumps up my sleeve. Try to lure the cricetid out and make him open the van. You might try to stab me with your hidden shard but Lord Aspersum has special punishments for those who assault his counsellors and lieutenants. For their friends first, of course.'

I pulled a diplomatic smile, recalling litanies of mind-fortification. 'Just don't tell Aspersum. Meet you here in half an hour.'

'If you deceive me, Lord Aspersum's wrath will fall upon your head. He'll brand you all as slaves, make your nun and your hired gun clear mines on the battlefield, execute your Angel and chain your cricetid in his quarters to interrogate him. As for the poor son of Dorn, he'll die a slow gruesome death.'

'Let's avoid gory images by now. I'm a person people usually trust.'

'Remember, I can save you all. We'll fly forth, to places of wonder and awe.'

I sighed. 'I cannot share your enthusiasm. Hoping for the mercy of iron, what a perspective.'

'You've got some iron within, sweetling. But not enough.'

I ran downstairs before he could say anything more. Something I shouldn't share with even Fluffster. A trap I'd got into because of stupid overconfidence. None of my friends would approve but I had to resort to the last weapon.

When I reached our room, it was already empty as I'd expected. The glint of silver on the floor was where I'd seen it last time. I shook dust off the cover with trembling fingers, closed my eyes and opened the grimoire.


	8. VII

Pallid sickly light flowed into the room from the mirror-smooth blank pages. Every trace of script had vanished from the book, pages rustling under my fingers like leaves of polished foil. They reflected faces. Different each time I turned a leaf, first they looked like my own distorted features, then started blurring till they didn't look human anymore. Sharp likenesses of Aeldari features, eerie visages of unknown xenos species.

In the middle of the book pages suddenly stuck together so I couldn't turn them further. A single page was fluttering in the wind between my fingers. A net of wrinkles on the specular surface formed glimmering patterns as unlight from the other dimension was growing stronger. My own face again, covered in intertwining silvery lines. The more I stared at the surface, the brighter they shone. Falling into a strange delirium, I kept on staring as if they were to reveal the secret I craved for.

Distant steps echoed in the corridor behind the closed door. Struck by growing panic, I focused my psychic sight and concentrated on the line pattern. Outlines of letters flickered through the mesh. Unwords rose to my lips, dissolved in the cooling air before I could remember them. The grimoire slipped out of my hands and shattered into hundreds of tiny mirror shards. A moment later they were glimmering beads of quicksilver that rolled away to the shaded corners and disappeared. Nothing happened. I waited for a minute but everything was still. Somebody knocked on the door.

'Lassie, are you there?' Uncle called me. 'Grab your bag, we're already boarding.'

I lingered, unwilling to scare him with the news. Aspersum hadn't learned about the bargain yet but my time was to expire in five minutes. I gripped the dagger biting my lips. There were Plodia and Corydoras to help me with a counterattack if Limax hadn't taken them away to his ship.

'Lassie!' Uncle knocked on the door again.

I stuffed the knitting bag and the dataslate into my pouch and pushed the door. My friends had all gathered in the passage, even Angel, half-paralyzed after the ordeal, had donned the remains of his armour.

'Fluffster, my admiration.' I bowed my head.

'My help has been valuable enough to ransom his life until the return,' Fluffster answered. 'Let's go to the van.'

One minute left. The sorcerer's cackling made me shiver. He was watching me, waiting for the moment he repaid the debt with interest. We headed to the elevator but my vox came alive after days of silence.

'Important news, Volentia!' Plodia shouted. 'Meet you in the van cell.'

The inquisitor couple got out of the van once we entered. Plodia's inhibitor was turned on, and I felt unfamiliar psychic presence a few steps before the door. A tall lean man in a hooded robe looked out of the van cabin, only a piece of his livid tattooed cheek peeking from under the hood. Fluffster crossed his arms and frowned at me. I shrugged my shoulders and nodded at the stranger.

'Greetings, Inquisitor,' his melodic voice sounded like glass dinging. 'The Iron Warriors planned to sacrifice me to the great tower but I've found new friends to remove my wards and unleash my full power.'

Uncle put his finger to his lips but the stranger only laughed. 'I might be a lowly slave but the gods had given me ample mind-gifts. Before the sorcerer sees you, before any of them notices your absence, we will sail away from this surly place.'

His bone-white fingers drew a few quick lines in the air. Crystals of psychic frost started growing in strange patterns on the floor tiles. The closest wall became smooth and clear as a polished silver mirror. A dark stain appeared in the center, expanding into a vortex of jet-black. It opened into an unlit passage, and I heard Lucia's insane yell from the van.

Fluffster gripped me by the hand. 'I warned you.'

I shrugged my shoulders and turned towards the passage so Fluffster didn't notice my unrest. 'Let's discuss everything once we're in a safer place.'

My heart seized by sudden panic, I stepped in and nearly bumped into a ravaged daemonhost. One of Lucia's former sailors. Soot-covered, rotten to the bones, the hapless sailor slowly raised his hand, and sulphurous smoke burst out of his popping seams. The slave warlock waved at him, and he froze up against the black wall.

'Ignore the scum, they mean no more,' the warlock said. 'Trust my sight, and I'll bring you to the place when your dreams will come true and your souls will get the rest you deserve.'

'Wrong place and time for sweet promises,' I said. 'Take us to the closest neutral world if you shun Imperial planets. Let's find a proper destination.'

'Expectations and plans are always wrong, Inquisitor. Some roads lead to different places every time, and some don't lead anywhere at all. You're out of time and space limitations now.' At his sign the walls closed around us. A flash of pallid light dazzled us, and we found ourselves on the bridge.

The daemonhost crew stood immobile around the navigator throne but I could sense animal horror boiling deep within their mutilated husks. The warlock leapt up to the dais lightly. 'The world of iron is no more, so forget its black sun. We're in the middle of nowhere, on the crossroads of a million roads, in the heart of the maze of uncounted reflections. You're dreaming as you slumber, lost amid the void.'

Viscous drowsiness made me sit down on the van porch. By now I couldn't tell for sure what was real and what wasn't. The calm, homely owl would have been a better shelter. We shouldn't have left it on Uebotia. Fluffster leaned on the wall and closed his eyes. Lucia cried and wailed inside the sealed chamber.

'I'm calling out to them,' she answered my wordless question. 'To wake them up. So they hear His voice. So they try to break out of their prison. They're scared and sick. Pray for them. Pray for us.'

'How's Amphiprion?'

'The poison. It's nearly killed him. His soul… In horrible wounds. A while more, and he's lost.'

'Lost,' I breathed out the last word staring at my crew. Uncle and Sister catatonic with their eyes open wide, the inquisitor couple cuddled up as if to unsee the creepy place. Angel licked drops of blood from his lips when I looked at him.

'Lost,' the warlock's giggle tinkled. 'Lost, never to be found again. Like the silver queen.'

The Lost Queen. The haunted tower of silver. 'The Iron Warriors found it, to our dismay,' I said.

'Her soul sleeps where no eye can find her. Her silent brother clad in metal, her other brother the uncrowned king remember, but no one believes them. The past is dead. The past that has never been. She saw dreams, and she will watch them till the end of days.'

Corydoras got up to his feet. His gaze restless, his movements brisk and hasty, he was walking around the bridge as if to find something. When he noticed me, he stopped, his eyes fixed on my face.

'Where is it?' He wheezed out. 'You had it moments before.'

'What?'

'The book. The book you stole from us.'

'It's gone,' I found a diplomatic answer. 'On Medrengard.'

'We haven't been there.'

I pressed against the van door as he clenched both fists. He turned back to his wife, and she showed her teeth in a mean grin.

'You've lost it, old fool,' she growled. 'We'll never get out because of you.'

'Your guilt. You've dumped it.'

'We''ll die!' Plodia yelled smearing tears over her face and raising her hands to the shaded vault. 'Because of you!'

I ran up to the warlock's throne and shook him by the shoulder. Searing to the touch like hot metal. He only giggled when I withdrew my hand.

'What's happening to the blank?' I shouted.

'Words of power are older than blanks themselves. Those who spoke them are locked forever. The hermit treasures nonexistent memories, the oracle struggles in vain, the fighter's fire is down to ashes.'

'You're gonna drive my friends mad.'

The warlock's face was glimmering under the hood like the surface of the cursed pages. 'Are they really friends to you? Do they remember who you are? Are you a friend to them, as you spoke the unwords of summoning to leave the dreary Materium for the Great Ocean?'

I descended to the platform and sat between Sister and Uncle. Sister's head drooped to her shoulder but her livid lips moved when I looked at her.

'Abhorrent. Those runes of blasphemy on his face. Like phosphorus on black.'

I frowned. 'He's pasty white.'

'His sorcery has blinded you,' she whispered. 'They're painful to look at.'

Uncle flinched. 'Painful. Everyone is dead. Already dead.'

Angel's face seemed saner so I pulled him by the hand. 'Angel, tell them there are no books or inscriptions.'

'They won't believe. The taint around. What have you done on Medrengard?' He bared his fangs but doubled over coughing, and his blood splattered over my sleeve. 'This sorcery is our doom.'

'Let's wake Fluffster. He knows more.'

'Soon my very blood will boil in my veins,' he said sadly. 'My wounds are opening.'

'Screw you all.' I slipped past the inquisitors who were about to pick a fight quarreling over the lost book. Fluffster didn't open his eyes when I gave him a shove. I tugged him by the fur, then started shaking him with all remaining strength. Absent right when he was needed, so much like him.

Lucia and her warp-sight was all I had up my sleeve. Sending a letter in the bottle like derelict sailors on feudal worlds. A shard-dagger assault would only make the ship unruly after the warlock released it. I concentrated to reach out to Lucia's mind. Though worn and greatly distressed by constant pain and her efforts to contact her former friends, she was ready to answer.

'They hear me, girl. They do. The Emperor will find even them in the abyss.'

'Hope He finds us all. Please do us a favour right now. You're the strongest psyker among us. The one who avoided slipping into madness like everyone else. Send a single message through the warp.'

'I'm not a trained astropath of the yours,' she grunted. 'I cannot find your bosses.'

'Doesn't matter. Just broadcast it to the Immaterium. So that they find out where we ended our lives. Everything is better than this daemonic bucket.' Everyone. Even Imudon. I caught myself missing his stern power my friends lacked. Power to rely upon. A man from the host of the Great Crusade, unlike us children of a weak wistful age.

I heard her rasp breath as she was concentrating. Then an incandescent flash dazzled my psychic sight.

'Done,' she whispered. I felt agony overwhelm her shattered body. Amphiprion's life was a fading ember on the brink of dying out. My crew was wailing and howling in unison save catatonic Fluffster and Angel who leaned forward, dark blood already pooled at his feet. Struggling with growing vertigo and sickness, I pressed both hands to my midriff on fire with sharp pain. Like back then in the gambling den. In the Casbah. A place where time ceases to exist.

A single livid stain in the abominable darkness, the warlock's twisting face was leering from the throne. I recoiled when I saw it change. Features rippled and melted till a blank mirror oval remained. Blurred contours started showing one by one in the murk of the oculus screen. Distorted visages turned into eerie sigils, reflected and multiplied as if surrounded by thousands of crooked mirrors. I pulled the scarf up to cover my eyes and turned away to the van wall, smitten by the helpless idleness.

It lasted for aeons. Then a burst of psychic energy cut through the murk like a blade. The choking aura ceded. Silvery light flooded the bridge, bright and full of life unlike the pallid glow of the cursed book and the warlock's visage. I got up, gasping for air.

'Look there! Look there! Reach out for them!' Lucia's voice got joyful. 'They shine with His holy light. They will set us free. Reach out for them!'

A giant breach in the wall let in vivid radiance, as if a door of a dusty basement opened into a summer day. The daemonhosts stood in a half-circle around the throne with their rotten hands extended towards the breach. The throne was empty. All that had left from the mysterious warlock was a pool of quicksilver reflecting flashing faces. It shrunk till last drops vanished under the light.

Seven giants in shining silver armour entered the bridge. Bound daemons screeched in unison but the daemonhosts didn't move an inch from the platform. Fluffster sighed and rose to his feet. I wouldn't be surprised if even his slumber had been fake. If I only knew what goals he pursued.

'Justicar, Librarian, Battle-Brothers,' he greeted them with a reserved bow. 'Glad that Lady Cichlasoma succeeded in locating the ship. I warned you about the psyker we retrieved.'

The decorated leader of the Grey Knights, Justicar Ystlum bowed back. 'Have the seals removed, my lord. We will scan her for taint but will not do her harm but for serious menace.'

When Fluffster opened the van cargo bay, Librarian Gwinwer stepped out of the line. We exchanged brief psychic greetings as he passed by. Gwinwer had saved the day back on Myristica, and the squad would finish the job now. He took off his blue cloak and wrapped up Lucia's frail body. Two Grey Knights carried out unconscious Amphiprion and wiped black blood off his chin.

'You're His warrior,' I heard Lucia's wordless call when Gwinwer's aura touched hers. 'Set their souls free. Burn the Neverborn but spare the souls. Let Him judge them.'

He nodded and handed her carefully to one of the squad Battle-Brothers. 'Now we insist that you all left the cursed ship for Lady Cichlasoma's vessel. This is our battle to fight. Our Chaplain will listen to your confessions and check you all for Chaotic taint. There are moments we especially need to clarify. Concerning the Mirror Shard.'

'I wish they got clear as soon as possible.' Fluffster gave me a stink eye.

I winked at him with a sour smile. He gave me a nudge towards the shining portal. Once the dark bridge vanished and we found ourselves in clean corridors of the Inquisitorial cruiser, pain in the midriff calmed down. Cichlasoma's Interrogator, accompanied by a number of the blank granny's no less blank offspring and a few armed acolytes in similar black armour, met us on the lower deck.

'My lords and ladies, welcome aboard.' The Interrogator bowed his helmeted head. 'Pardon for the absence of formal ceremonies, but you have to follow us to the chapel wing. The medicae are waiting for the injured in a fortified cell.'

The Grey Knights headed back. I walked in the rear, held at gunpoint by three acolytes and a null. We're under arrest, despite the Interrogator's polite tone. The chapel wing was located on the upper deck, separated from the living quarters by heavy gates with holy symbols engraved on every inch of the polished metal. Steps echoed in the empty passages as we went by rows of cells with blackstone-encrusted doors, crystal pavilions of contemplation, candlelit sanctuaries with holy relics and books. In the very heart of the wing vitrail walls of the chapel glimmered in soft lamplight. Large like a strategium on battle barges, the chapel was silent and placid. Incense smoke still lingered after the service, rising to the gold and vermeil frescoes of the vault. Wistful faces of saints gazed upon us from the vitrails, and I looked down at the mosaic floor, my cheeks burning.

A colossus in silver and black power armour stood in a circle of candlelight by a column, straight like a column himself. He stepped forward, and I raised my eyes to his stern skull visage at the dazzling touch of his aura. Cold metal-clad fingers touched my head.

'Let us speak in His presence only, Inquisitor. You are afraid of me, aren't you?'

I kissed the Chaplain's gauntlet. 'I've seen scarier things, Your Reverence. Even scarier priests.'

'Do not do the blasphemy of likening daemon-worshippers to His servants. You have a transgression to confess. How did you find the way to the cursed ship?'

His strict tone didn't bode well. I calculated the sum of further penalties in my head but recalled it was stupid to hide my thoughts from a psyker of such might. 'A psychic slave offered help to Lord Corydoras and Lady Interpunctella,' I replied cautiously.

'You know it's half the truth.'

I changed to psychic whisper. 'Your Reverence. Everything is already over. All is well that ends well. Let's settle the matters before Lady Cichlasoma arrives. I'm broke since the story of Myristica, you do remember.'

'You can hide your sins from Lady Cichlasoma but not from the Emperor.'

'I'd prefer dealing with Him right now. Anyway He's too busy to smash a tiny person like me right now, if He cares at all.'

The Chaplain shook his head. 'If you only knew how wrong you are. You should purge your sins before nightmares Radicals summon devour it. Lady Cichlasoma told us you had an artifact of daemonic malice on board.'

'It's gone.' I pulled an uneasy smile. 'A long story. I expelled a daemon out of the warpseer and…' I looked back at Fluffster who was watching me from behind the columns. 'I used it to escape Medrengard when the sorcerer threatened to have my crew killed. First I thought the spell didn't work but the abomination that drove the ship confirmed it. The unwords summoned him. At least, I coped without harm to any Imperial forces.'

I wiped sweat off my forehead. The Chaplain folded his hands in the holy sign. 'Penance must be given to absolve you of your sins. You repented, and you have a petitioner for your life, so you will not undergo execution or confinement in the dungeons of Mimas. Inquisitors often get away with their transgressions too easy, that is why they fall one by one. Even Lady Cichlasoma is not without flaws of Radicalism.'

'Your Reverence, I could have been a blatant Radical a few centuries ago but not now,' Cichlasoma said as she appeared from a side door, fully armed for combat. 'Today's Inquisitors are born Radicals.' She gave me a sour look. 'Miss Volentia, I'm sure one day we'll have to fight an army of Neverborn summoned with another of your business ruses. The brighter side of things are those rescued by you but I wonder how they survived your sweet warp adventures.'

'Just don't kill Lucia,' I asked. 'She doesn't want to serve Chaos anymore.'

'At least you had some piety to do the consecration rite,' the Chaplain said. 'I will complete it myself when the checks have been done. Her mind is a weapon against the Ruinous Powers, and she has to devote herself to His cause if she is begging for His mercy.'

'Well, while we're chattering, the battle will be over.' Cichlasoma pushed the door. 'Miss Volentia, you're to retreat to a seclusion cell in the chapel aisle. Promise not to leave it until we summon you again. No further questions.'

An even worse feeling. 'Just one until you leave. My crew.'

Cichlasoma curled her lips. 'I've just put it clear. No questions.'

'A thousand prayers to the Emperor will be your penance,' said the Chaplain. 'Kneel to Him and implore Him to forgive your sins.'

Carved doors closed behind my back. Complete silence reigned in the place after everyone had left. Incense smoke passed through small oriels above the entrance, streaming to the high vault in warm candlelight. A golden lamp was burning before the sorrowful visage of the Emperor. I sat on the floor, facing the door. Despite the Chaplain's admonishments, my mood was far from pious. If they didn't lock me in an anti-psychic cell and strip me of my armaments and rosette, they had little to accuse me. The rites had dealt no harm and left no traces. Trials of heresy usually take long, especially if more than one Ordo is involved. Unwanted memories popped up, and I chuckled. The exact musings of my late mentor. Pupils follow the path of their teachers, no matter how they wish to avoid it. I had sworn to stay Puritan but gave it up only two cases later. Pragmatism and Puritanism never come along well.

That's where the enemies of the Imperium have reasons to mock the ours. So many of us sacrifice use to adhere to the rules they don't bother to ponder over. Inquisitors are often acquitted thanks to their connection or wealth. Luck had brought me alongside Corydoras who had ties of kinship with Lord Platydoras, but my crew lacked viable protection. Save Fluffster who was playing his own game. If I obeyed the orders of Cichlasoma and the Chaplain, they would waste my men in combat to remove excess witnesses to the eerie accident.

I took a deep breath and pushed the door. Not locked. May the Emperor forgive me disobedience for the sake of my team only. My rosette would help me to take them away. One day I should become a bad girl who hijacks escort frigates and wages war against her own peers. Lucky ones become High Inquisitors when they get rid of their most notorious rivals.

The passages were quiet and empty. I held the rosette over a sensor screen on the exit gate, and it let me out without trouble. Carrying it in my outstretched hand, I kept on walking through the cell blocks searching for a map or data column. Enforced walls and doors were impenetrable to the psyker-sight.

An armoured acolyte looked out from an unlocked cell. I raised the rosette.

'You've already finished the prayers, lady?' She put a metal case she was holding to the floor and locked the door.

'I need to see my crew.'

'Lady Cichlasoma hasn't warned you? The wounded are on quarantine in the infirmary cells near the quarters of the Grey Knights. Only blanks are allowed to see them now.'

'Most of my acolytes were intact after the escape,' I said.

'Lady Cichlasoma didn't want to disturb you while you were fulfilling your vow of prayer.' At least, the null hadn't presented me as a vicious traitor, I sighed at her words. But then she went on, 'They were eager to join her in the battle against the Iron Warriors.'

'Forgetful as all grannies,' I grunted. 'She mentioned the battle but didn't boast you had caught up with that bastard Aspersum.'

The acolyte lingered before answering. 'While you were praying, my lady… The Grey Knights discovered a portal in the cursed ship. It led to the Galeos Parthenos, the traitor ship carrying the Lost Queen. If you wish to join the fight...'

'Of course I do.' It will be easier to skedaddle if I lead them out while the Malleus team is busy fighting Limax's men. The second thought made my midriff smart. The warlock had escaped through the portal. A foreboding link that connected him to the book as well as the siege tower. Something known to Fluffster, Cichlasoma, maybe the Uebotian couple, but hidden from me. Something I'd better stay away from.

Armed with a bolt pistol taken from the ship armoury, a quarter of an hour later I stood before the portal in a gut-wrenching company of two fully equipped blanks. Dressed in similar black armour suits with full-cover visors over their faces, they were more shadows than humans. At my greeting they only bowed their heads in synchrony and turned away from me, hands on their inhibitor switches. I didn't mind their presence as long as they let me slip through unnoticed. There will be worthy targets to distract them.

I stepped in and frowned in disbelief. The cursed ship had shrunk to a single narrow corridor of complete darkness between normal vessel airlocks. Its film-thin walls were shivering as if they were about to pop. My blank bodyguards quickened their pace before the floor could tear under their feet. I asked them about the battle of the bridge but they kept mumb.

'Even Sisters of Silence have their own way of chattering,' I said to their bulky backs. One of them slipped between the half-closed airlock doorleaves. A rumble of distant shots came from the Galeos Parthenos. An anti-psychic wave hit me when the blanks rushed forward with artificer pistols at ready.

I fell behind on purpose so as not to faint. Flickering yellow lamps cast meagre light on the dirty deck I had seen an eternity ago on Oldhaven. The corridor between the hangars and the gull sorcerer's former prison. The blanks turned to the leftmost hangar, and I followed them to the stuck escalators. An augmented cultist's body lay across the walkway in a pile of automata parts and dark stains of oil and blood. Torn remains of his buddies were scattered over the nearest platforms. I ran down trying to look forward only, listening to the growing noise from beneath. Both physical and psychic.

Alien presence spooked me. It was startling even in the turmoil of the tower's aura. Xenos, most likely the Aeldari, in numbers stronger than the ghastly snipers of Iarmailt. I gripped my pistol tighter and activated the chainsword when livid unlight of the Lost Queen stung my eyes.

The ancient siege tower, a mountain of countless mirrors in Aspersum's workshop, had now turned into a living waterfall of pale quicksilver. Sparks of warp-flame burst out of whirlpool maws on its surface as it reached for attacking warriors that swarmed the upper platforms like ants on a hill. Dying and dead acolytes had stuck to its tendrils of streaming mercury, their faces distorted with horror. I jumped to a small platform with a collapsed ladder when a tendril lashed out at us. One of the blanks tore a grenade off his belt and threw it into a gaping maw ready to snatch us. The other's grappling hook whistled through the air. Both were gone before I could bat an eyelid.

Struck by sudden weakness, I staggered and leaned on the fence. Below, on the lowest level of the dock, hundreds of faces stared screaming from the bottom of the Lost Queen. All marked by the death mask of the Fourth. The horrible engine devoured its cultist guards. I wondered why Limax's marines were out of the fray. A single bolter stuck to the far edge, pale fire streaming out of its barrel. The younger Warsmith had too few men to waste them in the lost battle. And maybe he had freaked out after the engine had revealed a part of its true might.

Blessed bolts and psychic fire of the Grey Knights had left unhealing wounds on the pallid mirror surface. Despite grievous casualties, Cichlasoma's team was slowly overcoming the daemonic siege tower. Trying to suppress growing vertigo and sickness, I reached out looking for my crew. Alien presence was getting closer. I hadn't seen the xenos yet but their auras radiated like phosphorus through the mist.

A flash of red appeared from under a severed quicksilver tendril. I activated my vox.

'Angel,' I whispered. 'Away.'

'We will crush the abomination. For the Emperor.'

'They won't let us live. Back to the ship. To Uebotia.'

He activated his jump pack and rushed up to deal another blow. Ignoring my words. Sister was hacking at the tower, and quicksilver drops rolled down the rocking platform at every strike and vanished. Uncle took cover behind a ruined column with a bolter instead of his gun.

On shaky legs, hazy on the brink of fainting, I made a step towards the remains of the ladder. Blurred stains of prismatic colours flickered beneath around the other end. Incandescent auras blinded my psychic sight.

A second later a hand grabbed me by the throat. A featureless oval face leaned over me. That couldn't be. A crystal pommel of a bright staff touched my breastplate. Binding sorcery made my breath stop. My weapons clanged against the floor.

The being had nothing to do with the warlock. The xeno's sleek long body was clad in a tight suit of green, magenta and blue. Something circus dancers would wear. The Masque of the Weeping Dawn. Those who had helped to seal the Lost Queen until the unlucky excavation.

Two more Harlequins landed on the platform. They exchanged a few phrases with my captor. One of them, a tall Eldar in a leering skull mask, shook his head and raised the firepike. My captor stopped him with a brisk gesture. Throbbing pain burned my midriff. I cried out but doubled over in another bout of sickness.

The whole dock shivered from the bottom to the vault. The quicksilver mountain started growing again as Cichlasoma's men clashed with the Harlequins. Plodia appeared from behind a collapsed ladder section. She gave out a desperate cry as sne parried a strike with a null rod, and her adversary staggered. Corydoras, bareheaded and bleeding, retreated to the far wall, struggling to counter the xenos' violent attacks with his psychic might.

A crackling discharge of bluish light flashed right in front of my captors. They soared up on their anti-grav belts to avoid the shockwave, dragging me after them. Librarian Gwinwer appeared on the platform, and the same second I heard a jump pack noise from beneath. Before the Harlequins could break through Gwinwer's kinetic shield, another armoured warrior landed next to him.

Cichlasoma, fully clad in her Vratine armour of black and gold, put forward her dreadful spear. Her unleashed null-might stunned even the Aeldari.

'They warned me your kin can be treacherous, Shadowseer,' she said in a mean mocking tone.

'You've let in a marked abomination,' the blank-masked Harlequin answered in perfect Low Gothic. 'To deny us our victory. Maybe, even sacrifice us to the Lost Queen for your own goals. We've found her before she could get close.'

'You'll let it consume everyone just because a single dumbhead thinks she's too smart to listen to authorities.' Cichlasoma pointed at me.

'She must be killed. As well as your men. The silver warriors may leave but everyone who's touched by the taint will die.' Foul, black taint. So the one who had coined the name of the Eye of Terror called it.

Cichlasoma pounded on the floor with her spearshaft. 'The Warsmith has dumped this dock module. We're in the middle of the Great Ocean. If the portals collapse before we finish the tower, we're dead. All dead and taken by the Queen's new puppeteer.'

'Run the shard of the Solitaire Lord through her poisoned heart, inquisitor. Order your exorcist to burn her soul so the very trace of taint is annihilated,' the Shadowseer said. The other Harlequins aimed at Cichlasoma's head.

'Better let her go, or you'll be next to get the gift.' Cichlasoma pointed at her own solar plexus. 'The Spear has witnessed many perish for their overconfidence.'

The Harlequins looked at one another. The Shadowseer's grip loosened. Gwinwer caught me in mid-air.

'Our treaty ends here.' the Shadowseer stepped back and made a sign to his men.

'I thought you would be wiser,' Cichlasoma grunted to me. 'Another stupid decision that adds in to your penance. Go back to the chapel.'

'Let me at least wash my sins away with blood.' I tried to smile with my trembling lips.

'Less drama, dear. You're not needed here. Be a good girl and read all those damn prayers. Anyway, this golden boy Paleatus will complain to his pompous cousin in the high office. You'll be safe and sound on Uebotia, ready to do stupid things again.'

My heart skipped a beat at a sudden feeling of trouble. 'It will take long before we get there.' There were more questions than answers left after the mess with the Mirror Shard but not the questions to be asked here.

Cold pallid unlight dazzled us as the Lost Queen was desperate in its agony, lashing back at the surviving attackers. I picked up my weapons and trudged towards the portal, only hoping I would see my friends again when the battle ended.


	9. Epilogue

Epilogue

The silver warrior came to her room once she woke after the first peaceful sleep in uncounted years. Lucia felt the scent of incense from his garbs and reached for the soothing light of his shining soul. She had run from his brethren for centuries. Twice they had clashed in her previous ventures, and she still remembered the bound daemon's utter horror in their proximity. The power even the master of the dark shrine preferred to avoid. Their presence had prevented him from touching the inquisitor girl's mind when fear drove her towards the possessed Lost Queen.

'Ready, sister Lucia?' He helped her rise up carefully. Pain gripped her broken body. The old High Inquisitor promised that an Apothecary of the Grey Knights would treat her wounds after the journey but Lucia knew more. There are wounds that never heal. The price of her treason.

'Let's go, brother Librarian. You did my job for me, I saw it in my today's dreams. My jailor cannot find me here, or else he'd make my every night a lasting nightmare.'

'The siege tower was demolished, and the cursed ship will never return for you. By His protection only, you're free from daemonic abuse.'

Through Librarian Gwinwer's eyes, she saw the chapel lit by hundreds of candles, bright as the sunny day she had wished to see back then. Amphiprion was standing by the entrance, recovering but still pale from the poison in his wounds. Like her, he had found faith after they had survived where they should have died. Former enemies, all gathered for her. Volentia the inquisitor girl smiled at her, and Lucia nodded despite the pain in her broken neck

The Chaplain was waiting before the altar. Visages of saints gazed upon her with reproach, and she folded her hands on her chest with effort.

The Chaplain put his hand over her forehead. 'Repeat the vows you took before the believers, and I will anoint you in the name of the Emperor for the true life in His glory.' He turned to the congregated before beginning. 'Our catechumen sister will need a sponsor to support her in the holy faith with prayer and instruction.'

'Let me choose by myself, Father,' said Lucia. She pointed at Volentia. 'Will you agree, girl?'

'Just in case, you've chosen the second most suspicious among us,' chuckled Lady Cichlasoma.

'She believed the Emperor would save me where her peers would just croak me.'

The Chaplain agreed with Lucia though she didn't expect that. 'Mind your own sins, lady. Everyone bears the mark of sin, and He alone is able to relieve us.'

When the rite had ended, Lucia decided to stay in the chapel. Acolytes brought her a servo-chair, and she sat back with Gwinwer's help.

'Will He pardon my crew?' She had asked it before but remorse didn't let her go. 'They grew up and died without His light.'

The Chaplain sighed. 'All we have to do is to pray for them. This matter is beyond our competence or power.'

'Pray for them, Father. I'm a weak sinner while you're righteous in His eyes. Pray for the poor girl. I bear the same mark, and I know what torment it can become. The First Acolyte will chase her and send her visions and demand to do his bidding. When I left his service, he sent her close to the Lost Queen. Even if she resists his call, other dangers are lurking around, like the filthy grimoire.'

'None of us is truly righteous,' he said sadly. 'She is yielding to worse and and worse temptations lately. May the Emperor's mercy be with her.'

'She herself was merciful to me, a foul harridan who had done her no good. Will He not judge her with mercy?'

 **Next episode:** **s/13107928/1/Volume-1-Episode-9-Black-Sails-at-Midnight**


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